1. The document discusses four observations and insights about retail spaces, including how reorienting customer and employee spaces in stores could impact sales, using scent and soundscapes more effectively to influence mood, how store entrances vary based on whether they sell wants or needs, and how the presence of people may deter theft for most customers.

1. Are You Paying Attention?
Insights and Hidden Opportunities
submitted by Paul Kim
1 observation ↔ inquiry → insight ↔ opportunity
-- the "aerial" view of the Microsoft Surface
tablet kiosk in the mall made me think about
how you could reorient how people are
organized in a retail space. reverse
employee and customer spaces or create
aisles that include short cuts so there is more
of a diagonal path to travel through a
grocery store. how might this affect sales?
2 observation ↔ inquiry → insight ↔ opportunity
-- walking through Macy’s en route to the
Apple Store made me think that scent could
somehow be used more effectively to affect
mood. creating soundscapes, not simply
canned music or DJs, might also be an
effective – affective factor in retail spaces.
what should a store smell and sound like?
3 observation ↔ inquiry → insight ↔ opportunity
-- entry ways into stores seem to vary
according to whether or not the store is
selling to people’s wants or needs. if
necessity is the reason for going into a store,
the entrance seems to be more closed –
Safeway & Costco with Target being a sort
of middle ground. if wants are the
motivation, then the entrance seems much
more open and the space seems brighter.
4 observation ↔ inquiry → insight ↔ opportunity
-- the ratios of employees – security guards – surveillance cameras to customers made me think about why there isn't more theft. I am not
certain what the statistics are but in grocery stores and department it seems that the distance of some goods to the exits and cash registers would
make theft common. I walked out of the bookstore with my purchase and no bag and my wife asked me if I had already paid… perhaps the
general presence of people in general is a deterrent to theft for most people.