Yarrow - Decoding the New Consumer Mind : how and why we shop and buy

Kit Yarrow

Foreword by Paco Underhill

Cover design by Adrian Morgan

Cover image Shutterstock

Copyright 2014 by Kit Yarrow. All rights reserved.

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Cataloging-in-Publication data on file with the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-118-64768-4 (cloth); 978-1-118-85958-2 (ebk); 978-1-118-85931-5 (ebk)

To my heartthrob and my hero, Russ

Within the first few minutes of meeting Kit, you would never guess who she is and what she does. You would just feel comfortable, and thats part of how she uncovers shocking realities. Whether at a White House dinner or hanging out at her local hair salon, she has a passion for trying to make sense of the world, the people in it, and the mysteries of psychology and buying behavior. Mostly, Kit just knows.

Kit is a psychologist and professor who lectures to students and professional audiences all over the world. Her work combines academic knowledge and practical wisdom, and what makes her a good researcher is her compassion. Social science is based on emotion, and social scientists understand that truth can be transitory, unlike other fields such as physics, where reality is based on math. Kits quest for order is about both the knowledge and the person, and she is good listener.

In the world of shopping, Decoding the New Consumer Mind will make waves. This important book explains it all, uncovering where we are going and showing how individuals and companies can advance their offerings as well as their bottom lines. On the heels of her first book, Gen BuY, Kit takes us deeper into the world of contemporary consumptionwhy it matters and who can benefit. The retail landscape is going to change more in the next five years than it has in the previous fifty. The nature of competition has changed drastically, and this book explains how merchants and marketers, who are struggling to keep up with the new world order, can leap forward if they have the correct tools.

The digital revolution, combined with the threat of downward mobility across the First World, is accelerating this evolution. While some of us are doing just fine, a frighteningly high percentage of Americans have been marginalized as wages have stagnated, costs are increasing, and we are forced to save where we can. We can divide our society by those who have climbed the house wall and those who are struggling. At age sixty-one, I could not afford to buy the home I now live in if I had to buy it today.

In 2014, we also have intruders in our wallets, and being connected via the web, smartphones, and other technological platforms has joined Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. Well feed our kids generic pasta and abandon our cars before we stop paying our mobile phone bills. Moreover, so many of our identities and emotional structures are in transition. According to census data, fewer than a quarter of American households have a mother, father, and dependent child, and the number of households where the female is the dominant breadwinner is rising.

We know that collecting data in the twenty-first century is easy. Figuring out what it means is the tough part. Decoding the New Consumer Mind draws on an enormous amount of thought and analysis. I am flabbergasted at the range of studies, books, and white papers that Kit cites, not to mention her own research. In an old-fashioned world, I can see her at the dining room table sorting index cards like a graduate student writing her thesis, but I am sure she has a better way. This volume is evidence of it.

Paco Underhill

CEO, Envirosell, and author, Why We Buy

Janine is a thirty-five-year-old high school teacher from Atlanta, and she just purchased a pair of jeans that shes unlikely to wear. If Janines pattern holds true, theyll sit on her jeans shelf for a few months until they assume their final resting place: a box under her bed along with another pair of jeans, black dress slacks, a floral bustier, and a stretchy black blazerall unworn and all still too small for Janine. A year from now theyll be resurrected and, along with the other unworn goodies, sold on eBay for a fraction of what Janine paid.

Janine isnt the first woman to buy something for a future weightthats been a constant throughout the history of modern shopping. Whats different is nearly everything about why Janine chose that particular pair of jeans; how and when she bought them; her relationship with the retailer that sold them to her; and what shell do with those jeans in a year.

The way Janine shops today is radically different from how she shopped a decadeor even a yearago. And thats true of most consumers. The biggest merger in the history of advertising was fueled in part by what Publicis CEO Maurice Levy described as profound changes in consumer behavior.