Full episode transcript below
Guy is back with Geoff to explore the design villainy behind shopping mall layouts and the bombardment of product eye candy that serves to make us lose track of our original goals and spend, spend, spend! Listen in to better recognise what nefarious design choices you’re subconsciously up against so you can be a more intentional consumer.
Highlights include:
💡 What is a “Gruen Transfer” and how does it make us more susceptible to impulse buying?
💡 How can we better design wayfinding experiences in physical spaces with the help of technology?
💡 Why are malls dying in some places but not in others?
💡 How can retail shopping be blended with online fulfilment to radically change the shopping experience?
Originally recorded on 7 August 2021.
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Episode Transcript
Geoff Wilson [00:00:05] Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Experiences Podcast, where we uncover potential design improvements in the world around us by exploring one frustrating experience at a time. I'm your host and chief observer Geoff Wilson based out of Auckland. And joining me again today is my good friend Guy Thompson, an industry-observing Kiwi based in Melbourne. Hi, Guy!
Guy Thompson [00:00:24] Hi, Geoff, nice to join you again haha.
Geoff Wilson [00:00:27] Haha we still haven't figured out any way to make these interests any more entertaining.
Guy Thompson [00:00:30] I think it's pretty normal in a pandemic. We're missing out on the small talk introduction things, so it's pretty it's pretty normal to have to work up to it haha.
Geoff Wilson [00:00:39] So today we're talking about shopping malls because when I started making a list of these podcast episodes, I put shopping malls quite near the beginning. And in the theme of this podcast, things that annoy me are things that are interesting...
Guy Thompson [00:00:51] Haha I'm excited to get into this.
Geoff Wilson [00:00:53] So I wanted to watch some people. So I've actually gone out to malls twice this week, I went there even this morning, and watched people just walk around and stuff, watched how I walked around, watched how I was trying to find the things I was trying to find, and that's what I wanted to bring to the table today. From a designer's point of view again, it's what are people actually doing? How are they behaving? And should this be the way? You know, should our experience be this wandering just like cluster of trying to find where the hell we're going to find sneakers?
Guy Thompson [00:01:23] This is an interesting point. I totally I totally see where you're coming from. And the thing that I find really interesting about this discussion is that I'm like, on the other end of that spectrum. I know why malls are made in a certain way and why we get lost in them and why they are sort of engineered to frustrate you and why if you're going to a mall to buy something specific, it'll be hard to find. You're going to get lost. You're going to spend too much time, and you're going to buy something you didn't need. So, I'm super excited to actually get into this topic more.
Geoff Wilson [00:01:57] So that's that's the reason I like to talk about shopping malls, it's noticing how it impacts people and what we have to go through, but what's what's the interest for you in this?
Guy Thompson [00:02:04] The fascinating part of shopping malls for me is around the architecture of creating this environment that's supposed to bewilder people and get them a little bit lost, but also present them with a whole bunch of stimulation and exciting, interesting things to look at. There's a tension between keeping people wandering around a shopping mall to discover lots of things and have a great time and spend their entire afternoon having a look around. This is the age of just trying to get from A to B to buy the thing that you really, really want. And I think we're going to be perhaps on either end of the spectrum around going to the mall because you've got a specific thing you want to buy versus just going to the mall to have a look around and experience and I really enjoy just wandering around and the people watching and just exploring and not needing to buy anything, but then kind of accidentally coming out with a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't need to buy. So I'd really like to drill down and just investigate some of those reasons why it's built in that way. The sort of tricks they play on us, and maybe we can think about them in a different way around, you know, just being more aware of what we're walking into when we walk into one of these spaces that specifically designed for us to spend money.
Geoff Wilson [00:03:08] I want to jump straight into the information desk because I think it's often overlooked, right? Sometimes they're even hard to find themselves. And so that's... when I watch the mall, that's the first person I went to find. I went to find the information desk because I was curious, what are the questions they get? Because surely they get some of the most interesting aspects of this and they've heard it all, they've seen it all. And so on that note, one of the first things - to know surprise - they pretty much said is, "Hey, can you help me find the store?" Not only just, "Can you help me find this store?", but also, "Can help me find my car?" I think that was one of the first things that was there because malls generally have car parks surrounding it on all sides, depending on whether you're in the suburban town or in the middle of a city. If you're in the city, you've got multiple levels, multiple car parks like, you know, level two, three, four. You have no idea where to find it because you, as the directory person actually even said, today most people walk in looking down at their phones and they haven't paid any attention to where they actually parked. So by the time they're done shopping an hour or two later, they have forgotten like the way home. They have no idea where they are anymore.
Guy Thompson [00:04:06] I expect that they probably end up being kind of consultants to sort of walk people through, "Tell me the first thing you remember when you got to the mall." Like, "What's the first shop that you saw?", walking people backwards to work out, "OK, now I know what door I came in. I can kind of work out where I was parked based on on there." And I know from personal experience recently, we haven't been going to shopping malls as much, and I definitely have found it a lot harder to find my car. It always was much more intuitive in the past, but that's definitely been a bit more tricky in recent times
Geoff Wilson [00:04:40] And I think we'll tease it out, but there's one aspect you just said right there of, like, it's the idea of anchor stores. So there's big department stores or the grocery stores or the Kmart or whatever it might be, this big thing that you are likely to actually remember. "Oh yeah, you're right. I did parking near The Warehouse." OK, well, at least at that point, they can help find, like, get you close to where it is, or at least tell you where the exit is so you can walk out there and find it. But it is quite interesting just from a human behaviour side, because even if you're not playing on your phone, what makes you consciously have to think and recognize, "Hey, wait a minute, I'm walking into this place. I need to actually make an effort to remember where I parked!" I mean, that's what happened today. We parked in and I said, "Honestly," and I was with my wife, I was like, "We're going to get lost. We're not going to remember where the car is." Funny enough, as we left, we knew what actually to go to. And we walked out and we walked down the wrong aisle of cars because there's just... couldn't tell where the hell it was.
Guy Thompson [00:05:29] It looks similar enough to get you lost. And every time I walk into a shopping mall, I think of why don't they make that that doorway more distinctive? So you can remember, "I walked in through the purple doorway." "I walked in through the green doorway." That would make it too easy to have that sense of security as to where I know I need to go to get out.
Geoff Wilson [00:05:48] But luckily, luckily being too easy, the newest Newmarket Mall here in Auckland, they've actually done that and they've done it well. So they do have like the Orange Car Park and on the signs as you walk into the mall, it says Orange, says actually Orange Car Park West Side or whatever it is. So they kind of use two different words to help navigate you there. But then when you walk in that area, it's all painted orange. So the columns are ornage, everything is orange because orange is actually fairly easy to remember. As long as you can see colours, then you can at least go, "Cool. I can recognize that," rather than, "Oh, it's near the Farmers," or whatever store it is.
Guy Thompson [00:06:19] Exactly. Yeah. So at least, I think on those multi-level car parks, there'll be green, red, blue, green, whatever that will help people to get back to their cars. And especially if you don't have a huge amount of space needed to get the cars out to get more cars in, then it's going to be important.
Geoff Wilson [00:06:32] And I'd like to hypothesise that colours would be easier to remember the numbers because at this point, if you go, "Oh, was I on Level Two, Three, Three Mezzanine?", whatever going to the half floors for carparks, if it's just orange, like, you know what? I can remember orange. I can probably remember, "It's not, I know it's not purple at least. Maybe it's a red or yellow, but I know it's not purple." And, so I think this is already forming a theme in my head around just cognitive load, you know, fancy technical term. But the idea that the more things that you have going on in your mind, the more that just... that you have to remember. It's just stuff that impacts your decisions and the things you do after that. That's the simplest way I could think to explain it. And I think wayfinding plays into that. And so, already just parking your car, people are already like scattered and getting lost. And to me, I don't like that as a designer. I want to make life easy for people
Guy Thompson [00:07:22] When people are like, it's the weekend and they're coming and they've got family members, the last thing they really want to be doing is paying attention to exactly where they parked the car. I think, you know, everyone's different, but it's just that they're hungry. They want to go shopping. They want to go do stuff.
Geoff Wilson [00:07:36] The kids are screaming already haha.
Guy Thompson [00:07:37] Exactly. Like they don't need to worry; like they'll come back to the car later and work it out then. So some people, as we know, were really good at remembering where it is and you go through a little bit of a ritual, you might take a photo or whatever. But mostly we just sort of get into the mall and we start getting lost. So let's explore why that is.
Geoff Wilson [00:07:53] Well, do you have do you have any immediate thoughts on that part about like getting lost because I feel I see you smiling over there as if you know something here haha. Like somehow your super villainness is just coming out already haha.
Guy Thompson [00:08:03] I do. I do. And this is an exciting thing because I heard about this term, but I thought it was relating to a different part of advertising. It's what's known as the Gruen Transfer or the Gruen Effect, which is the moment when consumers enter a shopping mall or a store, and when they're surrounded by an intentionally confusing layout, they lose track of their original intention, making them more susceptible to impulse buys. So I feel like this is a really deep principle that you can see on different websites. You can see in different retail stores, different locations. And I think shopping malls is the perfect example of this - its that when you've got people in that environment, you want to keep them there for as long as possible. You don't want to frustrate them too much so they get angry, but you need to have all these things they want to go see; these experiences, food, all these different things that they can do in the shopping mall. So it's an experience, it takes longer, and then they end up spending a whole bunch of money that they never intended to once they were actually trying to go there for that one thing, for the sneakers or to get a key cut or whatever they were looking to do, even if they were just coming there to have lunch, they've kind of left spending a lot of money - which is precisely what all of the store owners want to get a lease in that mall. They want those consumers to spend as much money as possible. So I like that there's that friction there around the intention for designing the shopping mall and the way that's laid out. But I also understand that that can be really frustrating for consumers. So wayfinding and trying to work your way around the shopping mall to find something specific is a key point. So tell me about when you were going to the mall and you looked at the wayfinding experience. What did you learn?
Geoff Wilson [00:09:39] What you reminded me, though, as much as I joke about the super villainy of business minded, you know, consumerism is that in this kind of role, we still are getting paid by business and so we have to have that balance there. It's we want to make things satisfactory and easy to use and easy to find and all this. But, there is a business element to everything. And so in this case of a mall, I think this will be interesting as we go, because I still want to make my life easy in terms of finding where I want to go. But then I do hear what you're saying about the business side that it's not... if I just go straight to that one place like kind of like having horse blinders on, I just don't look at anything else, I just go straight there and leave, then I didn't help the rest of the mall get any business there. And if the rest of its not getting business, then can it really stand up? And I think that's a kind of interesting question there - if you only shop at one place and everybody else shops there, can the rest of the mall actually survive? Because it seems like an ecosystem where you kind of need each other; you need each other to get business so that people actually want to go to the different ones. But anyway, point aside, I have, like even today, I looked at the map when I walked in and it was a 2-D map, it was one of those that were the classic style. There is a top down view. There's a big circle that says You Are Here. Now, just to pause on that, the You Are Here doesn't give you any direction of which way you're actually facing. So if you're standing at the directory and there's like, you know, you're in the middle of like four hallways, you have no idea which one you're actually going towards. So you've got to figure out how to orient yourself there. But anyway, big map, top-down, says You Are Here and then at the top or on the side - and I'll put in LinkedIn and Instagram and all that later images of the show so you can see what we've talked about - there's a directory at the top that I noticed, you know, it's all alphabetical and in categories. And so there's a big category that said department stores and had all the department stores listed and then all the stores that were named were all in alphabetical order at that point. And then they all had a code. So, reading them off, there's like P-13, K-5, and N-13. So the codes and numbers are all out of order. The the place names are all in order. Actually... Hold on... now that I realize this, no, they're not in order! This is interesting! The shop names aren't even in order, in alphabetical order, so they're just almost completely random. I wonder now if, in the directory, if you get whoever pays more or maybe gets listed higher? I wonder if some of these are in order. Some aren't.
Guy Thompson [00:11:57] Those are grid references. So like, when you saw that map, right, there was a big grid. So the grid is alphanumeric, so there's letters across the top and numbers down the side or vice versa. And so if you look at the store says it's P-5, you go along the side and you see P and you come across and then you do 5. So it's kind of like a little puzzle that you do as a kid and trying to find that position on the map. But the problem with that alphanumeric positional guide is that it's not consistent. Every company has a different way of doing that. Some might have the numbers on the side, some might have the letters across the top. And when we used to use physical paper maps, we were more used to doing that. You'd look at the grid reference, you'd be like, "Oh, it's 10-J," and you could find it on the grid reference. But we walk into a shopping mall and we're used to using like maps on our phones, and we don't even think about what a grid reference does. Honestly, if you talk to people beside that map and ask them what those letters mean, they'd be like, "I have no idea."
Geoff Wilson [00:12:56] Yeah. Well, I think they... I mean, in this case, I think you got a good point that it'd be interesting to test to see, yeah, do people... can they find it? And I think in this particular map - that I'll again you know, I'll show in the show notes and all that - you can quite easily see the grid, but there's a few interesting points around that. Pausing real quick to note, you just said something that my father loves to say a lot is that, you know, that people have lost their way today. That, you know, using ... and I'm not trying to make fun of it, I'm just saying he's got an interesting point that because we are so reliant today on Google Maps, Apple Maps and things like that, do people have the skills like they used to in orienting themselves to where they need to go? So, that is an interesting consideration for this.
Guy Thompson [00:13:33] I was probably sounding a little bit Generation X right there saying haha [old man voice], "People don't use maps like they used to. These kids can't even find their way without a phone."
Geoff Wilson [00:13:44] But it is a really good point because phones don't help you inside a mall. I mean, that's if they even get service, but there is no Google Maps inside the mall, you just see a top down view from the outside. Again, you have no idea which floor and hallway you're in, so the only thing you have to use are these, you know, either the guest services desk again or these kind of directories that are, you know, stationed hopefully near the entrances.
Guy Thompson [00:14:05] Exactly. And just a quick point on that. One of the most frustrating things about the fact that you don't have effectively like a Google Maps mapping support inside a shopping mall is because it's usually multi-level. And so maps are generally just used for single-layer navigation on streets, pathways, walkways, cycle lanes, roads, motorways, right? So it's all in just flat two dimensions. You don't have that additional layer to understand which level am I on right now? The GPS, it's not necessarily accurate enough to tell you that vertical height that you are currently on. It won't be able to necessarily accurately tell you how high you are in the building because it can't necessarily detect your position within 1.5 meters anyway. So it kind of basically just doesn't work. So you've got to work out a different way to navigate. And unfortunately, we're kind of used to just navigating one way these days.
Geoff Wilson [00:14:55] And what I was talking about the numbers is, actually, I can't even see in the organisation of the categories, the grid numbers aren't in order. The shop names aren't in any order. The only thing that's in order is actually the category, and I think that's a good point then, is that the categories are like Department Stores, Electronics and Mobile Phones, Food Court and some other, you know, Clothing. And it's interesting to think about shopping when you think of what did you go there to do? Like today, there's a new pair of shoes that I was actually quite curious about finding. So I knew in the back of my mind if I could come across a sneaker shop and find some new ones, that was my secondary goal today. Now, luckily, in that case, with the categories in these directories, Shoes is very likely one of those categories; that or at least clothing, because there's generally more than a few shoe stores in a mall. But if you were going to find like a gift for somebody like, "Hey, it's somebody's birthday," you have to find a gift. What do you actually look into? Because yes, it says as department stores and yes, there's electronics, but none of those give you ideas for how to go shopping there. So I thought, yeah, the category part that was, it's quite interesting; it's helpful, but not helpful at the same time.
Guy Thompson [00:16:01] What I find fascinating about that challenge is that the thing that's missing from shopping online at the moment is a curation aspect to the ability to curate different kinds of categories together or within themselves to make it an interesting browsing experience for consumer. For most online shopping experiences, we haven't moved much past a catalog experience. We have a photo of the item. You can see the price, you can see if there's a discount attached and you get a description of what the thing is under it. That's basically it. But when you enter a department store, a shopping mall, items are presented. Visual merchandising occurs in so many different ways; they can be special pop-up layouts and displays that can be, you know, different stores will try to do really innovative things with the layout and just, even just piles of stuff will be like a bargain bin. There'll be like a new product that's just doesn't have anything else around it because it's just in this premium position. So we have all these different visual ways to show products in the real world, and they haven't really translated to the digital world yet, at least in a way that's really easy to navigate through. And even when you think about social media, we basically just have rectangular or square photos with some text underneath and we kind of scroll through them. It's still a very clunky experience compared to the experience you have of just wandering around in the real world.
Geoff Wilson [00:17:20] So still standing at that mall directory, then let's say we want to go to the food court. So we want to know where the food court is. And we'll get into maybe food courts more specifically in a second. But if we're trying to find it there, yes, it's probably in the grid and you can again try to look through the grid and see if you can find it. But then you've got to plan like your route there, so you've found it, you know where it is. But again, you've got a You Are Here. So it's now you've got to do this orienteering again of like, "OK, what direction do I need to go? What hallways," you know, if it is multi-floor, "What escalators or elevators do I need to go up or down to get there now?" The best example I've ever seen yet, and I'll try to post a video of this, is the Newmarket Mall here in Auckland. That's like to newest mall again, and they've actually got a touch interactive directory. And so when you do search, you can actually type on a keyboard to find like a kind of shop you want. Still doesn't really do task-based, but it at least does it from a category point of view. Then you can type that in, it'll tell you what floor its on. It'll tell you how far to walk. It's like a three minute walk. It tells you how many kilometres or, you know, metres it is, which is kind of like maps which is amazing. And then it actually gives you a great dotted line. It does kind of do a 2.5D view, so it kind of says you need to turn left and head down this and go up this escalator. You can kind of zoom in and out. I quite love it. Now, I love it, but yet at the same point, I tried to use it and as good as I thought it was, I was just trying to find the information desk again when I was doing this and I was... I ended up on the other side and I was like, "Ahh crap, I've got to turn around." So I used another one to try to get me back to where I was. So as nice as it looks, I was really happy, and I thought it was the greatest thing in the world, and I still think it's a way better thing than just 2D, but there's still things missing, apparently.
Guy Thompson [00:18:59] That's that's a fascinating part of the challenge of designing the user interface for those kinds of mapping systems, right? You want to have something that's attractive. I think you want to make people feel like they know where they're going. They will have the confidence to do it. I don't know if it necessarily means you can actually navigate with that easily. I always end up taking a photo of it. I kind of look at it as I'm walking around. But generally speaking, the only thing that really works is that your ability to find an anchor tenant, one of those large department stores, the chain stores that you recognise and you just are looking for the proximity to that store. And generally, when you go talk to the information desk, they'll say, "Oh, it's just past that big department store. It's just on the corner by the Kmart or the Target or whichever store it is." And you, say, walk towards the supermarket and turn left and that's just on the corner. Right, we will navigate with really large milestones like finding points on the way to the specific thing we're actually looking for.
Geoff Wilson [00:19:54] And this, Guy, reminds me back to the whole cognitive load that we mentioned when you were first parking. It's you now... So if parking was part of your load, you're starting to feel a little stressed. Now you go to the directory, it's in the entrance. You've tried to find the shop, but it's all confusing and you've tried to trace your finger from the number grid, it says down to trying to look at the two grids, using your two fingers to find out exactly what the store is. So now you found it. Now you've got to orient to yourself and try to find your way there. Now you're walking along and trying to read every shop sign because like, "Okay, I found The Warehouse. Now it's the third shop." You Are Here, apparently. So now you're looking at all of these. So far, it's just been, like, just things piled on your head one after another in terms of trying to find something. Which I mean, does that make for a good shopping experience once you actually find the store? Like if you're just stressed out at this point or what?
Guy Thompson [00:20:43] I don't know if that makes for a good experience in terms of finding the store, but I feel like the wayfinding devices, both the signage and those information kiosks, the self-service sort of touch screens that are there to provide you with information, a sense of being able to find your way. But I don't know if they're ever that successful in allowing you to do it because we still kind of want to navigate the way that we normally do in life. When we walk around, we can see a street sign, we can see a shop on the corner, we can see a house that we recognise. We can see a building that we recognise, and we will use those to spatially kind of work our way through a navigation experience. But malls tend to look very uniform on the inside, with the exception of some of those individual storefronts and those large anchor tenants with the big signage at the front. Generally, each of those corridors and areas will look very, very similar and be this hub and spoke kind of layout with a food court in the middle of two or three major long junctions. And it will sort of spread out and you kind of want to keep people in the center of the mall and then keep them getting lost in that going around in circles, spending ages, shopping and just buying stuff and then sitting down and having a coffee or having some more food or just spending as much time as possible in the mall so they can actually spend more money. So I respect the process of, like, trapping your consumer and trying to get them to spend money hahaha. But as a consumer, I also understand how frustrating it is when you actually in there just trying to find one specific thing. I guess it relates back to that point. We've sort of mentioned earlier about the Gruen Transfer, about kind of disorientating you so that your impulse buy capability is higher; that you are trying to work out where you are going. And in the process of doing that, your visual cortex is really engaged because you're trying to look for what you're looking for; trying to remember what you were there to buy in the first place. And as you're going towards it, you definitely see things that you haven't seen before. There'll be new displays. There'll be new signage that someone will be having a sale and you'll just get distracted and go, "Oh, I should come back and have a look at that later. Oh, that thing is beside the food court. Oh, the food court! I might get hungry. I'm going to have some food." So that kind of instant, you know, suggestive, you know, it's an instant suggestion where you're getting triggered as to maybe you want some food? Maybe you want to buy this thing? Maybe you want to come and have a look at this thing later on? If you can remember the thing you first went there for and you go and find it, as you navigating your way back through the mall to work at what door you came in so you can find your car again, you're more than likely will go and just have a browse and just go window shopping and have a look at other things. That's the entire engineering principle behind having them all there in one spot anyway. It's the... that's that footfall, it's that foot traffic of increasing the likelihood that people will just browse and walk into your shop.
Geoff Wilson [00:23:34] It does feel like the idea - I mean, I don't really want to go to digital too much - but it reminds of pop-up banner ads and things like that of like, you're walking along, there's the kiosks in the middle of every single one. And just like a pop-up, you're trying not to look at the person because if you look at them, they will try to sell you something. So you're like, "Oh, I'm going to walk by the little thing in the middle. I can't look at the person that's holding this pad out in front of them or they have samples and stuff because the second you do that, they're just going to try to trap you and sell it to you!" So you've got to act like you're suddenly busy on your phone, just like staring down.
Guy Thompson [00:24:02] Exactly. So this reminds me of a little bit of a tangent around the future shopping, and we've seen it displayed in lots of different movies and things before. If you think back to, I think, Minority Report.
Geoff Wilson [00:24:13] I knew you were going to do Minority Report!
Guy Thompson [00:24:15] The lead character is walking through and they're getting recognised. Now we know that various different brands have experimented with this, where you can 100 percent do facial recognition on a person and find a the kind of consumer demographic that they fit into and absolutely display things in the window to them that might be relevant to them. Now this does get very creepy, of course, in terms of trying to catch people and working out, how much time do you need between seeing them versus displaying that? And also, is it being displayed to you on the big screen that's over the top of the escalator? So you've got people trapped on the escalator for 12 and a half seconds, can you display personalised ads to them during that period? You 100% can! Should you? Does it make them feel weird? Is it creepy? Yes haha. And so it's this constant test and learn in the physical space much the same way that you'd be testing different kinds of banner ads for the conversion rate and the digital space as well.
Geoff Wilson [00:25:11] So, yeah, so escalators maybe to get down to the food court. Some of the escalators here, there's two aspects that I noticed some of the malls here, especially the ones that have multiple levels. They've actually got a giant number painted on the bottom of the escalator which I haven't seen before. Which I thought was genius in the sense that, oh well, it reminds you where you are and what floor you're trying to get to. However, I once again realised that it actually confused me more because when it said 2 on it, I'm like, "Wait, am I actually on Level 2? Or, is it saying that if you use the escalator, you're going to Level 2?" Now, maybe this is just the Geoff problem because I overthink everything - that's why I do this haha - but yeah, so even that was like a little bit confusing, but it was still there, so once you figure it out, it kind of makes sense. The other part that I think is the interesting design is that here there's like... not escalators like the steps and not the floor escalators that you see in airports where like walkways to make you go faster. It's the hybrid. So it's an inclined escalator that has no steps, but it also has like this kind of magnetic locking floor. So for shopping trolleys here, shopping carts in the US, the name. If you have those, like you're getting groceries or whatever, you can actually take your shopping trolley onto the escalator and it locks it in place so there's no danger of it rolling downhill and actually knocking people over! I think that's brilliant. Every time I use it, I get giddy about it. And I guess the interesting aspect is noting, well, shopping trolleys aren't really a big thing in malls anyway. You're often walking around, which is ... that's actually...
Guy Thompson [00:26:35] Holding stuff, right? Yeah.
Geoff Wilson [00:26:36] That's a good point, right? It's like if you...
Guy Thompson [00:26:38] Like versus a Costco, right? Like you go in the Costco, you get this gigantic shopping trolley to put your stuff in. You're in a mall, you're just holding stuff in your hands, in those bags.
Geoff Wilson [00:26:46] Well, so that's the thing. If they want you to get lost, as I'm learning from the business side, they want you to wander around, they want you to shop a lot for hours, but you actually have a natural limit there! Your natural limit is how much can you actually carry? How much stuff you can carry? And, it depends on what you're buying and stuff like, can you actually walk around or does that incentivise you to actually leave?
Guy Thompson [00:27:04] This is a really good comparison between the way supermarkets are used within a shopping mall where, you know, your exit to the supermarket as engineered in such a way that those shopping trolleys go to the car park and you can't walk back through the mall. Because I feel like there might be a psychological factor to it. If you're walking around a shopping mall and you see people with trolleys, it feels kind of like a supermarket. And to me, that's sort of a... that's kind of an exhausting experience. And you want it to feel more like just this lovely kind of High Street where people are just like wandering around having a great time just wandering and they might have bought some things and their bags. But as soon as people start running you over with a shopping trolley, it gets exhausting and awful. And that's like when you're in the supermarket experience where you want to get in and out as quickly as possible, hopefully without getting lost. So, yeah, making it a really welcoming, relaxing, enjoyable space for people to be. But also making it difficult for them to leave, because that is a really tricky balance to how do you get that balance right? I think you've got to constantly tweak it to see if it works, and some models absolutely just won't work at all. And they'll be awful places. And, you know, people don't want to go to them because it'll just be so pandemonium on a Saturday. People will stay away, but they don't because everyone goes and it's bonkers.
Geoff Wilson [00:28:21] Well, because yes, I'm still stuck on this idea of this, you know, holding your bags because I think it's, let's just say, a high percentage likely chance that if you took your bags to your car to free up your arms to go shop more, chances are you're going, "Well, I'm at my car now, I'm just going to go," especially if you had to park far away. So if they do, they've lost you. But now I'm wondering, you know, is it like, is there a new opportunity here? Which seems a bit ridiculous. Kind of like an airport luggage hold. So, like, you could just like drop off your bags at a store inside the airport. You pay 50 cents or whatever it is to lock it there for an hour. That way, you can go shop around for more stuff. Come back, grab your things. But then you'd still have extra bags in your hand with the original bags you had, which would make it way more complex. So I guess it's just not a... I guess there's no way to deal with that? You just leave... Deep in thought, huh?
Guy Thompson [00:29:07] I'm trying; you've stumped me with a question there!
Geoff Wilson [00:29:12] Because, yeah, how do you get people to spend, OK?
Guy Thompson [00:29:15] When I think about the comparison between walking around a shopping mall with shopping carts so it feels like a supermarket versus walking around and holding these really nice shopping bags where there's these big logos, you can see where people have bought their things from, that's more of a sort of a luxury experience, or at least the very least an aspirational shopping experience to have.
Geoff Wilson [00:29:36] Oh, that you actually have the money to actually spend that much.
Guy Thompson [00:29:38] Exactly. Which is kind of what you want in a shopping mall experience. I think if you allow people to take their shopping trolley around the shopping mall, it makes it feel like a supermarket, which means it sort of cheapens the experience of being in the mall. Whereas going around the mall is kind of supposed to be an enjoyable journey and a little bit of an adventure for the weekend, especially as you've got that time to be able to do it on the weekend. It's a real luxury.
Geoff Wilson [00:30:01] But also, you know, there was a, you know, shopping list and things, you know what you... You generally have a list of things you need to go buy or at least ideas. In the mall, you might have one or two things you go to the shop for, but I guess that's that idea again; you go, "Well, I know I need to buy this, but let me see what else." Because, I did realize that once you get the thing you want, you might be like, Well, you know what? I've still got time left or while I'm here. While I've already gone through the effort to make it here and do this thing, what else are those nice to have things that I was meant to go back to the shop to have a look for a new shirt or new, whatever it is, maybe a new toy for the kid? But now you've got the opportunity. Man! I'm starting to get converted into the whole, hey, it is good to be lost! haha
— THE FOLLOWING HAS NOT BEEN HUMAN-REVIEWED FOR CORRECTIONS —
Guy Thompson [00:30:42] This makes me think of the idea that going to a marketplace is a very human thing we've all been doing for hundreds, if not thousands of years, for a number of different reasons. We're going there to explore the different produce that's available to see what the local farmers and and producers of things and goods and services are providing and showing off. There's a community element there that we can go and meet people that we know we might stumble into people. It's going to be a market that we usually go to. That's our local area that we go into our shopping. It's more uncommon to literally drive all the way across the city three simple suburbs across a bridge to a completely different mall. It's not close to you just for a slightly different experience. I think there is a level of a local community feeling to the closest mall that's to you. That's decent. You know, you might skip the one that's not quite so fancy and go to the next one. If you want that more aspirational, interesting experience, but you're kind of going there to see what's what, you're going to see who the people are and what things are available. There's an exploration process to looking at the things that are available at the marketplace. That's that's at the good marketplace that's close to you because it helps you get a better idea of what's happening in your world, what things are available, what your neighbors are buying, what the what the wealthy people are buying, what might you like to aspire to? There's a sense of discovery from going to a marketplace to see what's happening.
Geoff Wilson [00:32:04] So as a mall owner, then the thinking of business metrics and stuff, do you how many volunteers actually have a goal then of really differentiating it to try to attract more customers than from out of out of the suburb? Because this is it. You know, I mean, from my consumer perspective, it does feel like it doesn't really matter which mall you go to. They're all going to have the same stores. They're all going to have the same department stores, the same, you know, jewelry stores, the same shoe stores, the same, whatever, they'll be one of those in every one of those places. Now there might be a different brand than you have or used to, but overall you're going to have the same things. So do you really need to try to differentiate to drive
Guy Thompson [00:32:41] people to you? I think it's a thing that they do really look to do now, and it's difficult because there's a couple of factors in there that I can see. One is that as a mall owner, mall operator, you would want the tenants to meet a minimum standard of quality and service and reliability, so they need to be a majority to be a well-known brand. It's very uncommon that you'd have a completely one off boutique store that would go in. They maybe have a couple of locations they've been operating for a few years. There are more trustworthy kind of client to get in so they can pay the least for several years. But you also know that providing a good experience reminds me of an experience ahead in an outdoor shopping mall in Anaheim that was near Disneyland. There was probably half the shops were vacant, so maybe a hundred and twenty shops that fifty fifty five of them were vacant and they had boarded up the front of them and painted murals on the front and then put pot plants and things around. And I remember walking around this mall thinking, This is really spacious, it's really pretty. I've never seen a mall that's just got so much space, and I kind of got up to the second level and then I looked along and I realized that kind of camouflaged the empty stores as just kind of walkways and paths and really long walls with lovely murals and things on them. And it was just like, Oh, this mall is dying, and it's just really bad. So you have to make the interior of the mall look really pretty and really inviting all the time. So if you have a tenant that leaves, you've got a problem. So you want the whole space to feel really vibrant, really welcoming, really busy, really exciting for two reasons. First of all, that people want to come there because they feel like it's a great space to be. But also, the operator of that mall has to create that buzz so that people, store owners want to get in, that it's a desirable place to have your store. And of course, in the last year and a half, it's been very, very difficult to operate mall environments with shoppers coming out of their homes because people have been at home. So this is a real challenge for those operators and economies where e-commerce is doing very, very well. But the interesting comparison for that is, although we've known that retail has been a challenge for a long time and different parts of Asia, going to the shopping mall are still really, really popular because it's so hot to stay at home on the weekend and keep your air conditioning going all day. Imagine leaving your home at nine in the morning with your family, closing the door, having your air conditioning turned off for the entire day. You can go to the shopping mall with really strong air con. All day can have some food, you can have a coffee, you can have lunch, you can watch a movie. The kids can go to some crazy playground thing. The parents can have a look at all the different shops. You can hang around the food court, you can meet your friends, you can do stuff all day and not have to pay for that eight or nine hours of air con cost of running that full blast all day. So Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia shopping mall as shopping malls are booming, the existing ones are booming and they're building them so quickly that people want them there fast and they can build them. It's amazing.
Geoff Wilson [00:35:40] That actually reminded me perfectly when I was in Phuket before. Yeah, there's one mall that I can distinctly remember now is frickin human and hot down there, and there was a big, nice mall in the middle of the city, right? Yes, that's where we got to go. Like, it wasn't on our destination list, but just walking around the blocks for just a few minutes. We got to get inside somewhere cooler. And it was a great thing and it was really nice and lush inside and everything. And I can actually remember that mall perfectly now, maybe because I was dying of heat and it just it was the oasis that made it look like.
Guy Thompson [00:36:11] Exactly. And it's that sensation of like, you know, you're in a really hot environment, either you walk out of the airport and you're struck with this heat and you're like, Geez, I kind of want to stay inside the airport. It's so nice. So that reminds me of this comparison to like outdoor shopping malls and some of the urban rejuvenation that happens and cities across the the United States, North America and in Europe. If you're in a city where you can still go for a nice walk outside for most of the year, sometimes sometimes the year might be a little bit a little bit when they're a little bit rainy, but it probably doesn't snow heavily if you're in an environment where it's relatively temperate all year round, maybe gets a little bit hot in summer, but not supersede the crazy, cold winter. You've got a good chance to be able to run rejuvenated sort of outdoor shopping districts, high streets. You can put that funding into rejuvenating those spaces because that's usable for most of the year. Whereas if you're in. Place that super crazy heart for most of the or super cold and rainy and snowing all the time. A shopping mall is going to be your preferred space to actually be in. And so that's one of the aspects as well as that you're not just providing you're not just providing a really exciting, interesting, vibrant place for people to discover products, to meet their friends, to spend time with his family. It's actually just a really nice sensation to be in there that you kind of you're getting some natural light, but you don't have to be out in the elements. So that's a really preferable, nice way to spend your day compared to trying to be at home and save money without your aircon being on full blast.
Geoff Wilson [00:37:40] Now, I'm not always the greatest contributor to helping the shopping mall survive year first. First, I'll say a story that aside tangent because hey, that's what I do. It reminded me of two things. The first one was actually when I was a teenager. I think we called it the Sears Mall back in Virginia in a Sears huge department store. But by the time that we were shopping around it as a teenager, this place was dead. It was like a three story mall. It was almost creepy because there was only literally two or three shops left in the place. The Sears was still down on one end. The rest of it just dead empty, all boarded up. It's like, you know, if you go to like the I forgot what they call urban exploring where this place is completely shuttered, it feels like there should be a zombie movie in there. It's just it was it. I've still got an unnerving feeling now, 20 years after that thinking of this place that just had nothing left for it, but that was one. But the other part? So how they can come to be is people like me aren't exactly helping. So I mentioned shoes at the beginning of this. I was curious about this. Now yesterday, I asked somebody for a recommendation on a new running shoe. They gave me a recommendation, so I had a browser type of phone on my phone, and I saw that on this one site that she was now $80 instead of one hundred and eighty huge discount. I was like, Yes, but I was like, I hate ordering shoes online because I'm very particular and I don't know if they'll fit. So I just happened to be in a mall to research some of the stuff today. And let me go see it. And I found that exact pair of shoes in the mall and I tried it on. But again, their price as listed was one hundred eighty bucks. And so I was like, Well, I am here now. I do see it in hand. I could get it instead, though I did try it on and then have to do the little thing. I'm like, Oh, well, I'm not so sure. Try to make an excuse because I feel socially awkward about it. I left the store went to sit down to one of the little seating areas outside and then open up my phone and actually bought it online instead. So I went to the mall, I tried it on. I did not give them any money whatsoever, and then I just bought it online inside the mall.
Guy Thompson [00:39:36] This is the thing companies are storing this data on you. They know where you wear it. I know by it's like you and that store and you had an opportunity to buy that shirt. And then I think I used to think this was a bad thing. But now I'm starting to understand it's not necessarily as bad as I thought that people want to be able to interact with products and services in person and effectively a showcase environment. They want like this, this environment to go and where they can sample the product they can experience. They can touch it, they can have a look at it and then they can go away and they can buy it online and they can order and take it home. There is an intrinsic cost, obviously, to operating a store, having the staff there, having the stock available for you to buy. But as we go forwards and stores kind of consolidate, especially in Western markets, and they consolidate into fewer locations so that operating in a much more efficient way, it'll be pretty normal for you to be able to go to a store. And they will say effectively, you know, try on their shows and they'll say, will match that price. But we don't have them in stock because these are just the ones that we have in store for people to try on that because they're connected to the e-commerce fulfillment area. They can say if you pay now at the point of sale here, we can send it to you and it will be with you tomorrow morning.
Geoff Wilson [00:40:51] You know what that does? It solves the problem. We said earlier when if you had arms full of bags, you don't have to worry about that anymore, because if you go to that store and you go, Oh, well, I don't want to carry another box of shoes or whatever. Oh, that's fine. We'll just ship it to you and it'll be with you in your house in two days or whatever it is. So you can actually help everybody shop around. And then also, oh, this is now, man, I'm getting evil now. What is The Dark Knight quote? Live long enough to see yourself become the villain? Yeah, it's happening because now I'm realizing what if every store in a mall, you're just there to showcase things, you're just there to try stuff on and see if it works for you, you know, play with the toy, whatever it is. But every store basically orders it for you and it'll arrive at your house the next day if you don't have those physical reminders walking around with you. Of all the stuff you have spent money on, you might forget that you've already spent x hundreds of dollars, so you just keep shopping the shopping, shopping. And only when you get home late into the night and look at your credit card bill, we got. Holy crap, I realized what I bought now. And if you're not walking in a mall with bags in your arm reminding you of what you've already spent, you're now free to just buy whatever and only realized that after the fact,
Guy Thompson [00:41:57] there are certain areas where this is a common thing to do. For example, if you go on a winery tour. And, for example, you are from you're traveling internationally and you're coming to an area and you're on like a big bus tour and you come to a winery and you're like, Geez, this is really nice. I'd like to get a couple of bottles or I might like more because you're traveling internationally. You can't just keep buying lots and lots of bottles of wine to take back to the hotel. You've got to work out a way to ship it. So the winery will have shipment and fulfillment and courier services available onsite at the cellar door that help you get that one back to where you're where you're going. So that's sort of solve this problem because it's a really bulky, heavy, annoying I can take with you. But what we're starting to see is this crossover of a brand that's selling a lot online in the country that you're living in. They will have that fulfillment so that they'll be selling a lot online anyway. And so to close the distance between the retail fulfillment model of you having to come to the store and spend your time to buy the thing and fulfilling the order online if they can shorten that distance, I think it starts to really make it work really well.
Geoff Wilson [00:43:03] So if you are feeling stressed out by any of these things, you know, I'll take the energy down to level to say that I found out recently that the newest mall near us again, they actually have a quiet room. So if you are somebody who's just totally stressed out, you've totally flustered because you've been lost for a frickin hour or two. If the lights are hurting you, you got a headache now or whatever it might be, or if you're in distress, they so we're not talking to guest services. They actually said, you know, some people actually watch the the camera's kind of like a casino where they can see if people are harassing others and stuff and they will actually pull people aside. And basically there's a basically a distress room, a low light, comfortable chair. You can stay there as long as you want. So if they see somebody fainting or passing out or getting harassed or whatever it might be, they can actually take people to this nice environment to help them cool down again. I thought that was the coolest thing I'd I've never heard that. I don't know if it's widely advertised. I don't know how many malls actually have this kind of thing.
Guy Thompson [00:43:56] That's a it's a great point to be aware of, right? Because we're talking about kind of going into a shopping mall, like it's warfare, like it's a open every day, right? It's the front line of the consumer battlefield. But the reality is that not everyone is able to absorb or handle that experience, and it can be very, very busy and overwhelming. There's lots of lights, there's lots of bright colors, there's lots of movement. People who don't like going out of their homes, people who don't like being around a lot of people. It's a huge amount of stimulation to handle now for four young children or adults that may suffer from from a type of spectrum disorder or autism. To be experiencing that environment is really overwhelming and really stressful, so it makes sense that you need to be able to cater for all kinds of consumers and let them shop in a way that's comfortable and suits them. I know a year or so ago I saw that some supermarkets here enacted a quiet, sort of a quiet shopping period, I think was between seven and eight am where there was no music, there was no announcements and there was less people shopping. So having those times for shopping malls and, you know, protecting that space so that anyone can come and do the shopping that they need to do is really important. And you're absolutely right. If you are trying to access a shopping mall in a wheelchair or a walker or some kind of mobility scooter when it's very, very busy will be extremely frustrating and really, really difficult to do. So finding those more quiet times to do it is going to be what's going to work for those sorts of people. And of course, as we all continue to age and we have an awful lot of baby boomers who are going to be aging and moving around malls very, very slowly, that's going to be a major factor that you have the Soviet evening, which might be Wednesday or Thursday night, where everyone rocks up and does bingo and shopping in the mall at the same time. And does it very slowly over seven hours, but you're going to be in bed before 7:00 PM.
Geoff Wilson [00:45:53] Yeah, that's one thing I think people often forget about is, yes, today you might be mobile, tomorrow you might not. So keep that in mind. Yes.
Guy Thompson [00:46:00] So I feel like we've been in the shopping mall all day, but we've got to bring this to a close. So let's reflect on experience in the mall today. OK.
Geoff Wilson [00:46:07] You know, we've got some food in their bellies now. We finally found this. Hopefully, we can find our way back to the car, leave or walk, whatever you've got to do. So what are we as we're walking out of the mall today? What are we feeling? What are we thinking? What do we take away from this that we've seen?
Guy Thompson [00:46:20] The key thing that I've kind of realized from discussing today that an old provision of the service that you're trying to do, either through a digital experience, a digital shopping cart website, you've built an app and a physical shopping experience. There is moments of friction that happen and the transaction that either help you to put more in your shopping cart and and carry more bags out of the store. That friction either makes you spend a little bit longer looking at the product, inspecting the product, thinking about the product in order to complete that transaction. But you can take a step back from it and think about the architecture of keeping you in the environment for longer and ensuring that you dwell and you wander around and you explore being able to do that in a physical environment like a shopping mall. I think it's easier because you've got physical spaces and ways to do that.
Geoff Wilson [00:47:08] And so for my study and going back to the things that I like people watching behaviors, are you comfortable now knowing that the novel is actually trying to get you to stay longer, trying to get you to shop more money, you spend more money? To me, it's kind of helped build up almost a shield that I can go. I know the tricks you're trying to play on me. It's knowing that they're trying to get me lost or trying to get me almost flustered so that I forget how much I'm spending. But what can I do for me? Knowing that can actually help me change my behavior in that sense to go, Hey, I know how to protect my wallet.
Guy Thompson [00:47:39] Exactly. I'm becoming a more intentional consumer. I think we're all doing this in different ways. We're thinking of the kinds of products we're buying. We're thinking of the impact these have on the environment, how we consume them, how much the recycling load, all these different things, the impact of those products. So I think we're often being a little bit more intentional about the things that we buy. But we're still susceptible to those tricks that. Happen when we go into a shopping environment, when we go and say, Oh my God, the 70 percent off, maybe it's something right there, I can get a great deal. We're still motivated by pretty basic triggers that have been used and exploited by companies for a very, very long time. So being a little bit more aware of your behavior and those triggers in an environment like a shopping mall can hopefully help you to make some more informed decisions about what's actually happening in that environment. And perhaps from a design point of view, we can think about how we can re-engineer different kinds of processes to either increase that friction where we want someone to spend a little bit more time and and dwell a bit longer and look at that product, or we can make things a little bit easier for them and fulfill their needs and an omnichannel way or in a more seamless, frictionless way. So they have a bit of time and they think about, geez, that was really easy and enjoyable. I'd like to come and do that again.
Geoff Wilson [00:48:53] So thank you for that wrap up, Guy. And I think, you know, it's a good time to get out of this mall. I think it's about time to leave now.
Guy Thompson [00:48:59] It's been great. I've had a great time, but I have no idea where I parked my car, so I'm going to go find that and I'll let you sign off.
Geoff Wilson [00:49:06] And with that, folks, thank you for listening to this episode, and I hope you see the design of your everyday world in a new way… specifically, shopping malls. To see examples of what we were talking about today and to keep this conversation going, you can find and follow us @EverydayExpPod or myself @geoffwilsonHCD. Please consider leaving us a rating and subscribing to the show on your favourite podcasting app and checking out some of our previous episodes. And as always, just remember, you don't have to have a fancy job title to start noticing and improving the everyday experiences wherever you work, or shop! Thanks, and we’ll be on the air again soon.
