Suburban Energy
Yesterday, my roomate Emily and I drove out to IKEA in Schaumburg, IL and spent the day shopping like maniacs. The amount of energy we handled was simply staggering! I hadn’t been to a mall or a place like that in ages, and I had forgotten all the attention and energy that gets stimulated when you’re in that kind of a space.
What was kind of fun to “see” and experiment with was the energy of different stores, different kinds of marketing and the experience that the body goes thru in each one. For instance, Emily and I both got so overwhelmed at IKEA because they try to get you to buy into entire rooms, rather than simple items. We were only looking for a few small pieces, but we both felt like if we didn’t spend a ton of money, there was really no point. It was also interesting to note how difficult IKEA makes it to purchase anything; you have to write down the name of an item, find a sales rep, have them deliver it to your car. Not exactly easy – the really make you work! But it seems to be working – the extra effort makes people feel like they are getting a more valuable item than what they are actually getting. (In my opinion.)
After that we zipped over to Woodfield mall, where we stopped in some familiar store noteably - Urban Outfitters and The Buckle. These two stores really cater to the same demographic, but ultimately take a very different approach. Urban has this “hipster-I-could-care-less-if-you-but-anything” vibe, which of course, makes you want to buy everything to prove that you belong in there. The Buckle is interesting because I remember when they were a second-rate American Eagle cast off back in the mid-nineties. The store has really revolutionized their energy by selling upscale denim and shirts/hoodies with that very popular “grunge” design all over them. It was interesting to see our perception of the store change as we shopped from what we “knewit as” to what it has become.
In both cases, it was interesting to watch the salespeople try to “read” us and sell us what they thought we wanted. Almost the entire time, they were way off base! For instance, on our way out of the mall, we stopped at a perfume vendor on one of those carts in the middle of the mall. I walked up and told the guy I wanted to buy a bottle of “A-men”, which is my favorite cologne. It also happens to be one of the most expensive bottles he was selling. He tried to talk me into
buying three bottles of cologne that were on sale for 50% off – and I ended up walking away buying nothing! He would have had a sale if he had read me right – a guy who knew exactly what I wanted and was ready to pay for it.
We topped off our day with lunch/dinner stopping to eat at The Cheesecake Factory – where there was a 45 minute wait, which seemed extreme. So we walked across the hall to Ruby Tuesdays – were there was no wait and truly friendly service! It ended up being great.
