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Retailers: Learn How to Make Your Shop 'Pop'
Creating extraordinary shopping experiences for the customer is what marketing expert Pam Danziger's new book 'Shopping' is all about

Stevens, PA June 5, 2007 - In 2006 the business of retail, excluding automobiles and car parts, reached an all-time high of $3 trillion, which means people are shopping and spending more than ever before. But for the nation's more than 1 million retail establishments, the business of retail has never been tougher.

Pam Danziger's new book, Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience (Kaplan, 2006), helps retailers compete by focusing on what customers really want when they go shopping - a fun, engaging, entertaining experience.

As president of Unity Marketing, Danziger brings the in-depth research expertise for which she is known to a new investigation of shopping and retailing that is explained in her new book. She found, "For years retailers' success has largely been a function of offering the right products at the right price in the right location. But those factors are less important today as shopping becomes one of our favorite forms of recreation. Today success in retail is less not about what you sell, and more about how you sell it."

Three key trends have changed the landscape of the retailing market:

Trend #1: Rapid retail expansion - Today there are far more stores and places to shop which means more competition;

Trend #2: More people buy what they don't need - Shoppers need less of the things retailers have to offer, while shoppers' desire drives more people into the store to shop;

Trend #3: Shopping has become a pastime, something to do for fun - Driven by desire, not need, people go shopping for recreation and fun, rather than necessity, which means shoppers want more out of shopping than just buying more stuff. They demand an engaging shopping experience.

"These three trends have changed the whole business of retail," Danziger continues. "Retailers need to understand the new dynamic that has taken hold of today's increasingly savvy, value-oriented recreational shoppers. They need inspiration for retail transformation which is what Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience gives them."

Retailing success in the new retail environment is less about the product and more about the shopping experience

In Shopping, Danziger describes a retailer that focuses on enhancing the shopping experience for the customer as a 'shop that pops!' Danziger says, "A 'shop that pops' is one that is transformed from an ordinary store into an extraordinary shopping experience. A shop that pops becomes a destination for loyal customers to visit again and again, not because they need to buy anything, but because they want the thrill of shopping there once more. A shop that pops thrives because all the while shoppers are getting their experiential thrill, they are also shopping and spending money with abandon."

Powered by in-depth research about what shoppers want when they shop, Danziger's Shopping profiles extraordinary retailers who have overcome obstacles to succeed, such as:

Prairie Edge in Rapid City, South Dakota, offers authentic Native American arts and crafts with a big vision. Their goal is not only to sell rare and fine objet d'art, but also to preserve the heritage of the native peoples and to provide a fair price to their artisans. Prairie Edge is one of the early pioneers of 'fair trade' at retail that makes their customers feel involved in the store's mission and not just a commercial relationship;

Charleston, South Carolina's Tiger Lily, a florist shop that has won both local and national awards for their stunning arrangements and superior service. They succeeded only after they rejected what other people told them they needed to do to run a florist shop, like offer their customers balloons, giftware and other non-flower items. Instead they got rid of all the extraneous non-flower stuff and focused exclusively on delivering to their customers �awesome flowers.' With their new laser focus on flowers, Tiger Lily's customers responded with passionate loyalty;

Damsels in This Dress, Worthington, OH, has transformed from just a fashion boutique. They offer their customers more than a new dress - they help their customers discover their own personal style. They bring out the inner diva hidden inside every woman.

"For the nearly 20 retailers profiled in Shopping, it wouldn't matter what kind of products they sell. They'd be super-successful in any retail business. Whether they are in the business of selling arts and crafts or flowers or fashion, they have learned the secret of successful retailing and that is it is less about what you sell and more about how you sell it," Danziger says.

"If you are involved in the retailing business, no matter if you work for a big national retail chain or operate a small, independent store, Shopping is for you. Today making a retail concept work whether national or local in scope is all about creating an extraordinary experience for the shoppers in your store," Danziger concludes.

What retailers will learn in Shopping

Danziger's new book helps readers hone their retailing strategies by revealing:

The "Quantum Theory of Shopping" which are the four essential factors that explain why people buy.
How retailers, such as Nordstrom, Target, Godiva and Best Buy's Magnolia Audio Video stores, play each of these four critical variables to their advantage.
The five shopper personalities, including Ursula the Uber Shopper and Theresa the Therapeutic Shopper, who have unique drives and motivations when it comes to shopping and how retailers can use psychology to attract certain types of customers to their store and get them to buy more.
The seven distinctive characteristics that transform an ordinary store into an extraordinary �shop that pops' - called the Pop Equation.

Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Shopping Experience is published by Kaplan Business. It is available from local book sellers and online. For a preview of Shopping, the introductory chapter can be downloaded directly at http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/cms_pages/about_us/downloadPDF3.php

For retailers and product marketers: Unity Marketing offers multiple copies of Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Shopping Experience at a substantial discount off the published price. Call Unity Marketing at 717-336-1600 to discuss ordering multiple copies of Shopping for your retailer networks.

For media: Review copies are available on request.

About Pam Danziger and Unity Marketing
Pamela N. Danziger is an internationally recognized expert specializing in consumer insights, especially for marketers and retailers that sell luxury goods and experiences to the masses or the �classes.' She is president of Unity Marketing, a marketing consulting firm she founded in 1992.
Advising such clients as Cartier, PPR, Diageo, Stearns & Foster, Waterford/Wedgwood, Prudential Fine Homes, Ritz Carlton, Orient-Express Hotels, The World Gold Council, The Conference Board and American Express, Danziger taps consumer psychology to help clients navigate and master the changing luxury consumer marketplace.

In recognition of her ground-breaking work in the luxury consumer market, Pam received the Global Luxury Award presented by Harper's Bazaar for top luxury industry achievers in 2007.

Her latest book is Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience, published by Kaplan Publishing in October 2006. Her other books include Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses-as well as the Classes, (Dearborn Trade Publishing, $27, hardcover) and Why People Buy Things They Don't Need: Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior (Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2004).

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