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WHY WE BUY: The Science of Shopping
By Paco Underhill
Simon & Schuster, 255 pages, $25
You’ll never browse with innocence again after reading this unsettling book. Paco Underhill and his research team are mall anthropologists–they’ve conducted undercover studies of the retail industry for such clients as McDonald’s and Bloomingdale’s. Here, Underhill reveals many of their findings, such as the fact that a woman with a female companion spends on average 8 minutes, 15 seconds shopping at a housewares chain, whereas a woman with a man spends only 4 minutes, 41 seconds shopping.