S

What makes consumers buy where they do? Not price, not quality, not service, but . . . .
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The Personality of the Retail Stor e

By Pierre Martinea u
e One of the leading retail grocery chains in Chicago has been exceptionally successful in the newer communities and particularly in the suburbs . In one neighborhood after another, stores of this chain far outsell competing stores offering the same services, the same merchandise, the some prices, the same parking capacity, the same amount of advertising . Why such an overwhelming preference ? e One midwestern dealer has become a leading seller of foreign sports cars without advertising either special "deals" or the engineering superiority of his cars . Now does he manage to do it ? tI One Chicago quality department store has tremendous customer draw for the middle-class Negro, far more than all the other department stores put together . Some actual research on the underlying causes of this consumer behavior stresses the absence of any classical price considerations or functional factors . Again, why the preference ? What is it that draws the shopper to one store or agency rather than another? Clearly there is a force operative in the determination of a store's customer body besides the obvious functional factors of location, price ranges, and merchandise offerings. I shall show that this force is the store personality or image - the way in which the store is defined in the shopper's mind, partly by its functional qualities and partly by an aura of psychological attributes . Whereas the retailer thinks of himself as a merchant concerned with value and quality, there is a wide range of in-

tangibles which also play a critical role in the success or failure of his store .

Power of the Imag e

What kinds of intangibles are important? What is the effect of a retail store's personality? For answers, let its turn to the customers themselves - and, to make it specific, to the customers of the three retailers cited at the beginning of the article .

In the case of the grocery chain, for instance, one new unit developed over twice the sales of a new competing store of the same size and description . Research showed that the women of the community characterize the store as "clean and white," "the store where you see your friends," "the store with helpful personnel ." This chain unit conveys a pleasant feeling of independence to the shopper . The aisles are spacious and not cluttered . In short, shopping in this store is a pleasurable experience irstead of a routine duty . It is significant that not once did any of the shoppers interviewed mention lower prices, better bargains, or greater savings .
The tip-off to the automobile dealer's success is in the agency personality he has created : This dealer is a former yacht captain, so tha t he developed outside the rituals and mythology of automobile retailing . Instead of belaboring "deals" and carburetors, economics and functions, he has imbued his establishment with the symbolic appeal of the foreign sports car . 47

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48 Harvard Business Revie w

All the salesmen are British - no matter what they know about car mechanics, as long as they are recognizably British . Reinforcing their accents, they wear linen slacks and blazers with "Sports Car Club of America" emblems . Also, the dealer energetically promotes sports car clubs for different age groups, and he writes a column on sports cars in the classified advertising . In short, he has built and is constantly reinforcing a symbolic image congenial to a particular customer group . In the example of the department store, the consumer group ascribe their preference to on atmosphere of acceptance for them . "I get a warm feeling of acceptance," "It makes you feel good to go shopping there," "I like it because it seems to have a warm atmosphere," and similar comments typified most of the customers' explanations. By contrast, Negroes dislike other stores in the neighborhood because of the feelings of rejection they have - even though the managements have been trying to serve them . Retailers vs. Shopper s Despite all of this, the typical retailer's promotions and advertising proclaim price cuts and huge savings to the shopper, as if that were the only consideration in a buying decision . Tire store advertising, liquor store advertising, furniture advertising, appliance advertising - all have the same monotonous chant . Chain drugstore advertising is typically a bargain potpourri of nondrug items such as alarm clocks, salad bowls, TV tables, flashlight batteries . A grocer builds a beautiful store in a modern shopping center and promptly plasters his windows with gaudy signs giving it a fire-sale atmosphere . Yet research indicates that women do not believe there is any substantial difference between the pricing of various supermarkets . They are all competitive in price, customers think, and it is impossible to make any material savings by shopping at one chain instead of another . A woman's primary reason for reading a particular advertisement is "this is my store ." If she glances at other advertising, it is largely to reassure herself that her favorite store is competitive in price . Instead of comparing prices, she evaluates the supermarket from a different set of criteria : variety of goods, orderliness of the store, services and nonservices, personnel, other shoppers, and goals of the owner or manager . When our researchers talk to women about department stores, their comments invariably

cover a wide range of elements which bear on whether they will or will not shop in a particular store . They are quite vocal about the physical plant itself, the elevator banks, the washrooms, the location ; about the attitudes of the clerks and the other people in the store ; about service facilities such as credit policies and returns ; about whether the styling is extreme, conservative, smart, ageless, or in poor taste ; about the displays and windows ; about such intangibles as odors and colors - all these in addition to price considerations . Personality Identificatio n When the shopper looks at a store's particular advertising, she unconsciously asks herself these questions :
"What is the status of the store? Is it highclass or low-class or what? " "What can I expect of it in over-all atmosphere, product quality, and personal treatment? "
"ilow interestingly does it fulfill its role?" "lion' does this image match my own desires and expectations? "

Of course, she is not oblivious to price ; in fact, she may be proud of what she thinks is price-consciousness in order to justify her choice of a store . But plumb her mind - go beneath any pat answers - and you will find that she is not the "economic woman" that American businessmen have so long and glibly assumed . The Typological Approach The shopper seeks the store whose image is most congruent with the image she has of herself. Some stores may intimidate her ; others may seem beneath her . A store may be acceptable for one type of goods and not for others . A shopper may go to one department store for bargains, children's clothes, or housewares, znd to another one for gifts or personal items . Thus :
When the question was asked in a city-wide study about the preferred store for an everyday dress, two mass-appeal department stores were overwhelmingly chosen by the wage earners' wives . But when asked where they would buy a good dress, most of the women selected different stores . In fact, one store clearly stood out as the `uxury store for the lower-income families .

Economic factors will always be important . But unless the store image is acceptable to the shopper, price announcements are meaningless. The upper-status woman cannot conceive of

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herself shopping in the subway store of a large department store . Regardless of bargains, she is repelled by the thought of odors, milling crowds, poorly educated clerks . Conversely, the wage earner's wife is not going to expose herself to the possibility of humiliation by shopping in the quality store, whether it be Bonwit Teller or Nieman Marcus or Lord and Taylor - even if she has the money to buy something there . In other words, regardless of ability to pay, all shoppers seek stores whose total image is acceptable and appealing to theta individually . This concept of the store image goes hand-inglove with a growing realization that retailing generally must take a typological approach to marketing. As Virgil Martin, general manager of Carson, Pirie, Scott, has stated : "It is high time we retailers recognize that we cannot be all things to all people . When we try to do that, we end up with no particular appeal for anybody. Each of us has his own individual niche in the market place . It is up to us to determine where we fit, who comprises our customer body, and then to fulfill as completely and satisfactorily as possible the expectations of our particular group and our logical market . "

Store Perso~ ralily 49 this question : "If you were going to buy new livingrorn furniture for your home, at which store would you be most likely to find what you want?" ExI1I6IT I summarizes the answers in profile form for two leading stores . If the customer body of each store had been truly representative of the social classes it- the metropolitan area - or, more precisely, if it had corresponded with the chance expectancy of choice based on the numbers of people in these classes - the result would have shown up as the horizontal broken line opposite the figure too . But in neither case did it turn out this way, as the thick lines show . Store A appealed Strongly to people in the upper and middle classes, and Store 13 appealed strongly to shoppers front the lower social classes .
Exntarr i . Cus-runsen P ROFILES : STORE CHOICES
OF PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT SOCIAL CLASSE S

(Observed choices as percentage of expected choices )

210

:o0

Illusion of Mass Appea l As a researcher with some crude tools for describing customer groups along both sociological and psychological dimensions, I am continually confronted with amazing disparities between the retailer's concept of his customer draw and the actuality. For example :
t One Chicago retailer believes that his store does the largest volume in its product category in the market . When we discussed his marketing philosophy and future goals, I asked hint about the character of his customer body, lie did not hesitate to state that the entire market was his oyster - people from all income brackets, all surrounding areas, and all social groups . But an analysis of his sales tickets reveals that nothing could be further from reality . An extremely disproportionate share of his customers is concentrated in the lowest economic third . Although his store is located in the Chicago central shopping district and should attract traffic flow from all parts of the area, his customers are coming in a statistically significant ratio from the south part of the city and the southern suburbs .
C In making a social class analysis of the customers of Chicago retail organizations, we asked ' F ro m a speech, "The Dynamics of the Present," 195 7 National Conference. American Marketing Association .

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Yet the advertising director of Store A, a leading department store with a brand range of price lines and a basement store, was astonished to learn that not every person read his store's advertising . And the executive vice president of Store B, one of a chain of retail furniture stores, was on record as saying : "\Ve sell everybody . We have stores throughout the area, we advertise in all the mass media, we have furniture in all price ranges . " Not by any stretch of the imagination do these stores have universal appeal . Each organization is successful, yet each is attracting out of the market a distinctive customer group .

Stores of Distinctio n
The foregoing examples are not unusual ones . A lengthy list of customer profiles in many cate-

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gorics and along several dimensions makes it perfectly clear there is no such thing as a store image with equal appeal for all income groups, all social classes, all ages, all types . The store that is successful in the new communities and suburbs has competitive difficulties in the mill districts and the lower economic areas, and vice versa . The competitive pricing structure may be the same, but the elements of the store image which are so attractive to one group of shoppers are not attractive to another group . It has to be this way . Different classes and different types of shoppers have different psychological outlooks on the world and different ways of life . Each segment of the market looks for a different emphasis. In general, the lowerstatus shopper looks at goods in a functional sense ; she wants the stare image to reflect her values of concreteness, practicality, and economy . She is concerned with quality of the rater chandise and dependability of the store . The upper-status shopper, by contrast, is interested in whether the symbolic meaning of the store reflects her status and her style of life . Take, for instance, the Marshall Field store in Chicago . It is much admired by perceptive competitors because all or the organization's aclivities are consistent and reinforce its strong symbolic character . The advertising, windows, merchandising events, restaurants, architecture, store policies, and attitudes of the sales personnel - all say the same thing symbolically . A shopper may feel she cannot afford to buy there . she may feel more comfortable in the atmosphere of another store, but she knows precisely what to expect . Marshall Field epitomizes elegance and sophistication . It create, a mood that helps to transform the shopping trip into an exotic adventure . It is described by shoppers as a "little world in itself" where the shopper can browse and enjoy her fantasies . But just as the Marshall Field store rcpresents-'so much to one kind of shopper, so does Scars, Roebuck & Co . have tremendous appeal to another kind . It is considered the friendliest and most comfortable department store in Chicago, with outstanding strength in all kinds of appliances, household staples, paint, tires, and children's wear . The type of woman considered typical of Scars' customers is pictured as bardworking, careful, practical, and home-minded . Sears has created a public image of itself as a family store, both in the type of merchandise it carries and in such intangible meanings as warmth, comfort, friendliness, honesty, depend . ability, and even unselfishness . Whereas the wire is more apt to go shopping alone at Marshall Field, it is not uncommon for the Sears shopping trip to be a safari for the entire family . Sears, Roebuck and Marshall Field are the two largest department stores in Chicago, yet their store images are entirely different . The very merchandising strategies and personality aspects which are so successful for Sears are not uppermost for the Marshall Field audience, and vice versa . The upper-status woman expects a respect and a restraint from the salesclerk that would be interpreted by the wage earner's wife as formal and forbidding . On the other hand, the family atmosphere and the great emphasis on savings which attract the Sears customer are distasteful to the Marshall Field shopper .

The Dull Personalit y

What happens to the retail store that lacks a sharp character, that does not stand for something special to any class of shoppers? It ends up as an alternative store in the customer's mind . The shopper does not head for such a store as the primary place to find what she wants. Without certain outstanding departments and lines of merchandise, without a clear-cut attraction for sonic group, it is like a dull person . When we asked Chicago women o characterize a department store on a range of qualities, the one attribute most applied to the alternative store was, "You don't hear much about it ." It may spend many millions annually for advertising and promotion events, vet many, many shoppers will characterize it this way . Here is an interesting story of what happened to a store that lost its personality and then regained it :
A leading southern department store originally possessed a distinctive image emphasizing the traditinnalist values of its city . The lighting and the fixtures were old-fashioned, and the total store atmosphere was congruent with the city-wide interest in antiques, old families . old homes, old restaurants, and historical monuments .

Then the women's apparel merchandiser modernized his department . He introduced new fixtures and lighting, more high-Fashion styling, and a promotional flavor similar to any aggressive chain store in this field . The fortunes of the store declined in definite progression - first women's apparel, then children's, then men's, and finally all the hard-line departments .
A management consultant determined that the store had dissipated the strongest component in its

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Store Personality 51
image, the key to which lay in the women's apparel department . It had become indistinguishable from any other store . On his advice, the store set about restoring its traditionalist, distinctively period personality . The old-fashioned lights and fixtures and the ultraconservative styling were brought back . As management reformulate(] the symbolic meaning which had given the store distinction and character, its fortunes changed sharply for the better in the same progression as they had declined first women's apparel and ultimately the hard lines .

management wants to create - or subtract from it . They affect the success of promotions and can be used to transmit any elegant, exotic, or unusual emphasis in store policy . Thus : C J . L. I l]son's new Eastland Center in Detroit, while located in a higher-income area than the same firm's fabulously successful Northland Center, is designed to he more colorful and lively while still reflecting highest quality . The entire decor of the first floor presents a subdued effect of dark woods, cherry showcases in center islands, but with a greater use of color on wall panels and in various metal displays running from floor to ceiling, Hardware finish is bronze, of the richest type of finish available. Besides the effect of various woods and colors to create personality, the type of fixture is significant . A quality store such as this uses a large number of showcases and center islands which lend a rich feeling to (lie store, as compared to a table-top presentation .
ii T . A . Chapman's new Capitol Court in Milwaukee uses bronze profusely throughout, including bronze displays, plus many species of wood, to express a modern but high-fashion character . C Julius Garfinkel's, which is all outstanung carriage trade department store In Washington, made two fixture changes in its new lower-level store in Fairfax County, Virginia, in deference to the modern age . While the design is similar to the fixtures in the downtown Washington store that express conservatism and fashion, the new store uses a light ash wood plus more open selling to create greater accessibility of merchandise .

Personality Factors
What makes tip a store's image in the minds of customers? There are many elements architecture, color schemes, advertising, salespeople, and others . Let us look at the most important ones . Layout & Architecture
The layout and architecture of the store itself invariably come in for comment . Women in modest-income suburbs are likely to describe changes in department stores over the years in terms of the modernization of the physical plant itself :
"Modernization in the better stores is the big item nowadays. "

"They are all modernized inside now and arc much better than they were ten years ago in appearance and comfort for the customer . " Sometimes when elevators and escalators are set too deep in the store, women experience a panicky feeling of being lost . A shopper in such a store complained, "One day I thought I never would find my way out ." Some shoppers are overwhelmed by counters and displays which are built too high . "They build up the display way over eye level so that things are staring at you and it bears down on you," they may comment ; or, "On entering that store, the whole place gives you the feeling of crushing you . " Especially when comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the department store with those of the specialty shop, a very sizable proportion of women express feelings of confusion, of being overwhelmed by the crowds and size of the department store . Very possibly, the same reaction may be created by huge supermarkets . The fixtures of a store add in a subtle but potent way to the general decor and atmosphere "William E . Henry, Gasoline, Gasoline Companies and Their Symbols (Chicago, The Tribune, 1957) .

n Ilarvey's, in Nashville, created a lively Victorian personality by buying an old carousel and placing the animals throughout the store and on the marquee . The store restaurant is in the form of a carousel, and the cashier's booth resembles a ticket seller's booth .

Symbols & Colors

In a psychological study which was conducted for us on gasoline brands and companies,2 by far the most distinctions and meanings were created by the emblems and the color schemes used on the retail stations, rather than by any product differences or verbalized claims of the companies . Sonictimcs these meanings were positive, sometimes negative . But whereas the differences between individual companies and brands were mostly blurred in the motorist's mind, rich meanings were conveyed to him by the symbols and colors , A similar study, conducted by a New York

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industrial designer,' took the symbols of midwestern gasoline companies to eastern motorists who presumably were not familiar with them . Their evaluations of the companies were based therefore entirely on the shape and color of the symbols . Wherever this study examined the same symbols as our study slid, the respondents' evaluations were in almost complete agreement . For example, the company using an oval-shaped symbol and a red, white, and blue color scheme was accorded by far the most positive evaluations . The company using a triangle was rated lowest on every scale . A dark color scheme used by another company cast an aura of dirtiness over its stations . Still another design and color created a company image that was "old-fashioned" and 'inadequate" in motorists' minds . What applies to gasoline stations applies with equal force to many other types of retailers . In the customer's mind color schemes and designs have an intrinsic meaning . They tell him something about the company as surely as the architecture, fixtures, and other visual factors . The association may not be logical, but it is real . Advertising The retailer's advertising is an especially important factor in expressing the character of the store. But while the retailer thinks mostly of the factual contrut of his advertising - item, price, timeliness, quality of merchandise - the shopper is impressed by the physical appearance, general tone, and style of the advertising as well as by the words . just as we instinctively snake judgments about another person front his clothing and his mannerisms . so does the shopper believe she can abstract symbolic cues from the advertisement, To illustrate :
This year, in a study of retail grocery advertising, aye took characteristic advertisements of several Chicago chains to different parts of the country where the shoppers were totally unfamiliar with the stores . When the judgments of women who knew nothing whatever about the stores were compared with the opinions of Chicago women familiar with the stores, they were in rem .r ..rkably chose agreement .

tising lend themselves by logical extension to the store itself and to the goals of the owner . High-style art and restraint of tone and typography convey that the store is expensive and Formal . The advertisements which are overly black and filled with typographical tricks indicate that the store is disorderly, with cluttered aisles and a strictly volume-turnover philosophy . Obviously, there is no one advertising style which is best for all stores because each is trying - or should be trying - to convey different meanings about itself . The promotion store and the predominantly mass-appeal store would be mistaken to run the beautiful advertising of the exclusive shop and the quality department store ; for a grocery in one neighborhood it might be mandatory to promote trading stamps, but for a grocery in another section of town, very unwise ; and so on . In other words, the symbolic meaning of the advertising has to be consistent with the character of the store itself.

Sales Personne l
perhaps the biggest single factor in the store image is the character of the sales personnel, in spite of the fact that so much discussion of retailing in recent years has virtually disposed of the salesclerk . The success of the supermarket and the extension of self-service into other fields has led some to assume that personnel will some(lay disappear from the retailing scene. We talk about robot retailing and the necessity for preselling ; we say the store clerk performs only a wrap-up function in (he typical store ; we detail how the automobile salesman is now only a sharp-pencil operator instead of an aggressive outside salesman . Moreover, many department-store executives to whom I have talked appear resigned to a steady downgrading in the quality of their sales help . They feel they cannot compete in the labor market with other industries and are therefore forced to take whatever is available . Yet the fact remains that shoppers almost invariably evaluate the personnel in discussion of specific stores . Even in the grocery chains that have no salesclerks, women will talk about the checkers and the stock boys, whether they are friendly or indifferent, cooperative or brusque . As the shopper tries to imagine how her family would like some new dish or some un'amiliar brand, she naturally is anxious for support an d
' A Study of Consumer Response to Ott Company Gas Station Signs (New York, Lippincott & Margulies, 1977) .

Retail advertising has become a language unto itself . It accurately conveys to the shopper whether the store is exotic and high-style, a dependable family store, or a promotion store hammering at bargains and pennies saved . She decides which atmosphere is most appealing and where she fits . Certain elements of the adver-

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information from some source . She is unhappy when the stock boys are so engrossed in their tasks of refilling shelves that she feels her questions would interrupt them and be resented . In the case of department stores, clerks are mentioned more often than any other imagecreating factor. Here are typical comments : "A salesperson's personality makes the store ." "If the clerks are courteous and friendly and act as if they enjoy their work and their merchandise, I enjoy shopping . " "The employees make you feel at home or uncomfortable in a store by their attitude when they wait on you . Sometimes if you decide not to buy, they can make you feel like you'll never go back . " "I was just browsing in the millinery department of the store when a snippy saleswoman asked me not to handle the merchandise . That was enough for me . I would never return there again . "

In contrast to the impersonality of the downtown-store salesperson, the relationship between clerk and customer in the outlying center can be more personalized . The fact that both usually live in the same community or general area makes the clerk more perceptive to the shopper's attitudes and wants . As one shopper said .
"You get to know the same salespeople in the local stores, and they know just what size and style and price you want . "

Store Personality 53 exact . While they may find it pleasant to know that there is such a thing, they are far too much concerned with the operational problems of being good merchants to devote any mental energy to it. But I believe that somebody in top management should think about these intangibles of store reputation and public attitudes . Somebody high up should ponder whether the over-all store image is positive and appealing or negative and dull, and whether it is In tune with what shoppers want today . The image plays an increasingly vital part in the fortunes of business . Some of the reasons for this are economic for instance, the increase in discretionary spending power, or the rise of new types of competition . Such trends make the subjective element of choice more important at the same time that the consumer is presented with more alternative ways of spending his money . But there are other reasons why top management should give more attention to the company image - reasons that are not so obvious . Some of them apply with particular force to department stores ; some are of interest primarily to other types of retailers . Let us see what they are .

Suburban Shoppin g
Today with the customer flow in most great cities moving outward toward the periphery and the beautiful new shopping centers, with so much of the population moving away from the heart of the city, the retail executive is concerned with placing stores in various strategic outlying locations . Just as the manufacturer is weighing the risks of product diversification, so is the retailer studying the uncertainties of geographical diversification . In the central shopping district of the past, he did not have to concern himself with store personality so much because all roads figuratively led to Rome . All shoppers found their way to the downtown area . Now the situation is quite different . The executive has to take his store image into fairly stratified communities whose shopping expectations and style of life may be totally out of keeping with the traditional image of his store . In one instance, when a promotional bargain store was located in a community of ambitious, mobile, well-educated young families, these people took the store as almost an insult to their set of values . In another situation, a high-status and a low-status store both entered a middle-class community, and both were rejected because shoppers said, in effect, "I don't trust them ."

I believe that the courtesy and adequacy of sales personnel is one of the decisive factors in the growth of the outlying and suburban store . . fn the words of another woman :
"Why shop downtown when the local stores are so much friendlies? " It is ironical that at the very time when a better educated and discriminating shopper expects more from the store and the clerk, management is dragging its feet in upgrading salespeople . The stores are more beautiful and Interesting ; they have escalators, air conditioning, and improved fixtures ; they have buyers ranging far and wide to offer the broadest merchandising selection . But what about the salespeople ?

Trends in Behavio r
Perhaps a great many retailers will consider this concept of the store image as vague and in-

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The problem is far more difficult than merely locating a store where there are population concentrations and doing research to learn what kind of a personality to give the new store so that it will "fit in ." The branch store and the suburban store partake of the personality and character of the big downtown store . Even though management may build very attractive branch stores which in themselves would be congruent with the new community, these stores cannot dissociate themselves from the core meanings of the main store image, which are deeply etched into the shopper's consciousness . If, for example, merchandising techniques and promotional approaches have made the downtown store successful with lower-income families, a branch will operate under a cloud in a smart new suburb . And, conversely, when the highstatus store Incites a branch in a fairly prosperous mill district, the advertising which is building an image of sophisticated modernity for the main store's customers is also visible to shoppers in the mill district, who shy away from such a store image . The spectacular growth of the outlying shopping center has created another problem . Very often this center has included whatever stores the real estate promoter could interest, quite without regard to how their images fitted together. As a result, the stores in litany centers are pulling against each other . The smart highfashion department stores and apparel stores find themselves in centers with drugstores, grocery stores, and a miscellaneous assortment of small shops negating their image, so that the center becomes a hodgepodge to the shopper . If the opposite is true - if most of the store images rim reinforce each other - a "shoppingcenter mood" will result that will make these stores more successful than they could have been operating by themselves . But any stores that are out of character with the over-all image will have A harder time than they would otherwise . As an illustration, one grocery chain is having difficulty in a vcry successful center which is dominated by stores that create a mood of elegance, ornateness, formality, and slicer luxury throughout . The shopper coming to this center is dressed for the occasion and not likely to be attracted to a routine grocery store . Earlier I stated that the question of the image was one for top management . It should now be easy to sec why this is so whenever store location is the issue . It makes no sense to ask a group of executives to operate a branch in a new location until careful attention is first given to the store personality they will be working with . It can bless their efforts or plague them! Either way it is a factor of tremendous importance . The New Custome r In a study of the new community shopper, based on four rising communities which I felt were typical of different social classes and income groups, I noticed two large-scale trends :
i A new set of family values is developing . There has been a shift from the philosophy of security and saving to a philosophy of spending and immediate satisfaction, to rise of the child-centered family, more self-indulgent spending, a tendency to equate standard of living with possession of material goods, and great emphasis upon community values . ,Q The influence of the store image is increasing . People place great stress upon their interaction with other people - talking and socializing with others . Ilow do they react to the growing impersonality of metropolitan life? Cutting all her ties with friends and family to move to a new city or new suburb, shopping in stores where she cannot know the owner or the clerks or where there may he no clerks, the shopper compensates for less personal contact by personalizing the store . She behaves in considerable measure toward this inanimate object as if it were a person . It ;)ccomes a symbol to which she can form deep attachments or dislikes . A department store, like a person, is characterized as "modern, practical, casual, and exciting ." A grocery chain is characterized as "young, progressive, growing, Friendly ." Another store is called "dull," and still another is described as if it were somebody she did not like .

The National Association of Retail Grocers has conducted seminars for its member stores whose sole theme was the importance of developing an appealing and distinctive store personality . Throughout the country there are Countless instances of imaginative independents successfully competing with the chains because they have created their own character in many and diverse ways . One Chicago grocer recently opened a "kiddy theater" which adults cannot enter without crawling on hands and knees . The youngsters sit entranced on benches watching cartoons while mother enjoys her shopping . Brand Product s Much of what applies to stores also applies to products and packages . Package designers

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Store Personality 55 startle our moral sense when they say that today's consumer is more interested in the package than in what is inside ; she takes the contents for granted . Styling and decor are the key to the automobile sales picture today, not engineering . Refrigerators present the "sheer look ." Today even the most prosaic products are offered in a choice of ninny colors . All of these are externals which have nothing to do with economics or function, yet which are demonstrably important in the sales fortunes of the brand . ninny items were bought in what stores anc at what prices . It should and must analyze retailing in this way . But it must not forget that statistics on sales provide only a partial basis for intelligent decision making . It must not be so captivated by the logic of figures that it overlooks the nonlogical basis of shopping behavior . Whether the customer is buying airline tickets, gasoline, hardware goods, or department store merchandise, his actions defy analysis in terms of after-the-sale- statistics alone . To understand "why," management must look for deeper insights on customer behavior . I have focused much of this article on department store customers not because they are different (they are, after all, the same people who buy automobiles, life insurance, and so on), but because studies of them offer some of the most dramatic evidence to support my points . We have found that the customer generally thinks of shopping as a total experience which runs through a number of departments in a number of stores and ends when she (or he) returns home . This is particularly true when she shops downtown or in a major shopping center requiring some travel and time . She faces many extraneous problems : How does she get there? If she drives, where does she park? Which store does she go to first? Is it the store where she plans to buy, or will it be the comparison point? If she expects to be gone for long, what about the restroom and restaurant facilities ? Curiously, the lowest-income shoppers mentioned the holiday aspects of such a trip more than any other group, probably because their routine lives are closer to humdrum practicality . The shopping situation must therefore include many things not directly associated with specific items but closely connected with various patterns of consumer behavior . As the shopper fits the stores into her planning, site manipulates store images in her mind - not images of this counter or that department but impressions or pictures of entire stores . In large part, where she goes and what she buys depends on the subjective attributes that are part of these store images - atmosphere, status, personnel, other customers, Consciously or unconsciously, tiey sway her expectations and direct her steps. Company, Inc ., t957). Chapter XV-, and Joseph W . Newman, "New Insight, New Progress, for Marketing," HBR November-December 1957, P . 95 .

Service Organization s
Company image and personality arc also important to the success of service organizations . Here the primary differences between competing companies arc generally not matters of price and service so much as they are stereotyped attitudes in the public mind . Whether true or not, they exercise tremendous influence upon buyer choice . For example : Airlines offer the same rates and much the same services . Yet a Chicago Tribune study of the airlines serving Chicago shows very wide differences in their company images . In fact, no two of the seven airlines studied have anything like the same profile .
United Airlines is accredited with a broad range of rich meanings : safe, up-to-date, good for traveling with children, efficient stewardesses, extremely dependable, excellent food, comfortable, excellent personal attention, luxurious service, and attractive interiors in the planes .

Capital Airlines has a very different image, stemming largely from its use of Viscounts : fast, quiet, smooth, good views, comfortable seats, ap ultramodern, progressive line . Interestingly enough, the same feelings were expressed by those who had flown in Viscounts and those who had only heard about them . This confirms findings of other studies that the attitudes toward a company image are not necessarily formed from experience . Rather, they may be shared ideas relayed by word of mouth .

A Point of Vie w
Management is accustomed to look at shopping in an atomistic way - in terms of how 'For an explanation of the contribution of the behavioral sciences to this problem, see Pierre Mauineen, Motivation in Advertising (New York, McCraw-Hill Book

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