Shift in Shopping Habits Changing Retail?
A prominent expert says that consumer shopping habits have changed forever. Back in April, Public Broadcasting System’s economic correspondent Richard Solman interviewed Paco Underhill, author of Why We Buy.
The environmental scientist turned shopping economist stressed that this Great Recession has changed a generation of shopping habits much like the Great Depression changed our grandparents’ habits. Although as a retail consultant he recognizes the pain this brings to the industry, he argues that the change is good for consumers and the country. “We cannot sustain the juggernaut of consumption that we have had here in the United States over the past decade,” states Underhill.
“Nobody's going to go back to the old ways. And what we're seeing here is a time in which our retail world is probably going to contract.
… We have Americans out there whose credit card debt exceeds their annual income. We have an entire generation of Americans with little or no fiscal discipline or financial knowledge. Our houses are too big. Our cars are too big. Our debts are too big. Our bellies are too big. Now it's time to go on a diet.”
The concern is that shopping gives a sense of community, a comfort that consumers nowadays have less of. Many Americans are also frightened “because they are facing things that most of them have never thought of in the context of their lifetime.”
Almost six months have gone by since Paco Underhill gave his alarming prognostication. Was Underhill right or wrong in his vision that something has permanently changed in the buying habits of retail’s consumers? Could the message now be that we have hit bottom and that brighter days are to come?
- Watch the interview in video streaming
- Or listen to audio streaming
- Here’s the transcript of the full interview
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