Today I made the weekly trip with my mother to Walmart, a place where we go every Wednesday since my grandmother, who’s not able to drive anymore, is always in need of her prescriptions. Walmart, as I’m sure everyone knows, is an interesting place. It’s usually filled with uninviting employees (although there is the occasional older man who cheerily greets customers at the door), middle-aged mothers shushing their hungry and loud children, and crabby old women who just want to get their prescriptions for the week. I think Walmart is such an interesting choice to compare to the ideals that Gladwell writes in his article. This is mostly because I doubt the corporate leaders of Walmart actually care about how those ideas would affect the customers, at least not more than other similar stores. I feel that is because Walmart is the store that is reasonably priced and generally pretty reliable, you know that they will sell pretty much everything you need and you probably won’t have to visit another store to find everything on your shopping list.
The first thing I noticed when comparing my experience at Walmart with that of what Gladwell describes is with his “butt-brush theory.” In this, Gladwell explains that “the likelihood of a woman’s being converted from a browser to a buyer is inversely proportional to the likelihood of her being brushed on her behind while she’s examining merchandise” (Gladwell 67). He, later on, clarifies by stating that “This means that ‘a women’s product that requires extensive animation should never be placed in a narrow aisle’” (Gladwell 67). While I was traveling throughout everyone’s favorite superstore, I noticed that all of the aisles are very very wide, even the clothing racks aren’t very close together. This made a lot of sense to me, I know I really don’t appreciate feeling claustrophobic because I have to squeeze through a section of a store, everything should be easily accessible to everyone, no matter their size.
As I passed by the clothing section of Walmart, I noticed how just like in Gladwell’s article, shirts were neatly folded on wooden benches. He calls the act of shoppers physically browsing through clothes that are arranged on tables as “petting.” He further clarifies his point, saying that “we eat, we pick up food, on tables” (Gladwell, 68). These tables, just like the ones that I saw at Walmart, invite touching or “petting.” If a potential buyer feels a fabric that they fancy, they’re going to be more willing and open to purchasing the item and according to Gladwell, these customers are more apt to do this when the clothes are laid out, not hung up. I know right now I’m writing this on my wooden kitchen table, so his comparison to that of the kitchen table and how we pick up clothes just like we pick up and touch food is really interesting.
Lastly, I think Gladwell’s concept of the “invariant right” was really interesting. When I was trying to look out for clues as to what the store designers would put to the right, since people, in general, have a tendency to favor the right side (as most people are right-handed), I couldn’t really find anything at first, since the “right side” is always changing with your perspective in the store. But I noticed, that the first thing you see when you enter Walmart, is the cashiers on the left, and the food on the right. It starts off with fruit and then loops around making sure you get everything on your list: dairy, meat, eggs, etc., all of which are located on the right side.
Honestly, before going into this I really doubted that any of Gladwell’s theories could be compared to a store like Walmart. I didn’t think Walmart would be more than slightly influenced by these concepts, but maybe it’s due to these ideas that Walmart is so popular now.