A walk down Brigade Road
This entry was originally at http://kingsley.blog-city.com/read/44847.htm
While I was in Bangalore (ostensibly for Easy 3, but also to catch up with some friends), I did the mandatory walk down Brigade Road, a busy shopping area. One of the first things I noticed was that the crowds seem to cling to one side. It didn’t take too much analysis to figure out that people choose to walk on the side which afforded some shade. The distribution between the 2 sides was nearly 70-30. Other possible explanations are that the other side didn’t have interesting stores (not true), that the other pavement was not as wide (true!) and that most people approach Brigade Road from MG Road and choose the path of least resistance(true).
There is more to this. As day slipped into night, people continued to favor one side over another - probably some form of conditioning. For a short while I walked on the less treaded side, and after a while found myself walking with the crowds. I had crossed over to the other side without being aware of it! It’s a good example of why you shouldn’t ask the user, but instead observe behavior, analyze and deduce. Most of the people walking down the street where quite unaware of their preference for one side.
Imagine what this means to a retailer - observing customer behavior can lead to an increase in walk in’s of nearly 100% (anecdotal observation on Brigade Road. I wasn’t just looking at the pretty girls). Shops that sold expensive stuff (like real jewellery, sarees) would probably not be affected by this behavior. Customers would be serious enough about those things to cross the street. Casual purchases, like scarves, trinkets and t-shirts, however, are heavily dependent on spontaneous walk-ins. Also, I don’t think there would be huge difference in real estate costs between 2 sides of the same street. It might make sense for a retailer of trinkets to spend extra money to get a place on the favored side, since the premium would be justified by the increased number of walk-ins.
So, it’s not just enough to locate a shop in a prime shopping location, you also have to make sure you know how your customers behave. If you don’t, you might end up getting lower returns than you could have gotten.
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