I read "blink" , by Malcolm Gladwell last night. (Next up, "The Tipping Point", especially since I consider myself a veteran of fads.)

A couple of his examples struck home to my business.

1.) Too much choice causes people to buy less. Uh, oh. If you've ever seen my store, you'd see why that would concern me. It is visually overwhelming, with more pop culture choice than most people know exists.

But you know what; if it is true that too much choice causes people to buy less of a specific product, I have to believe that a myriads of choices causes people to buy SOMETHING. I know that isn't exactly logical, but I do know this:

The more I carry the more I sell.

I read a book about the car industry years ago that maintained that the Japanese car companies conquered America by, among other things, providing more choices than the American car companies were providing.

I know that while I would like to have a thematically simple and elegant window display, what actually ends up happening is that I put one of every new item that I think will sell well in the window. It becomes a little cluttered -- but my observation is that it works.

Far be it from me to think that corporate America knows what its doing -- not a safe bet -- but I suspect that they have pretty good reason to offer us hundreds of brands of cereal, soap, etc.

2) Our assumptions about people keep us from making good sales decisions.

Again, Uh, oh.

I have to tell you, after 26 years of watching people walk in the door, I've gotten pretty good at deciding in that moment what the customer is likely to do. Once in a blue moon I get surprised, and I try to keep open the possibility that I'm wrong, but mostly I'm performing an act of triage, expending my energies toward the most likely outcome.

If you've ever been in my store, and you don't LOOK like the type to buy comics or games or sports cards, etc., I will immediately direct you to my used books: "We have used books for half the cover price. They start there and wrap around the store. Mostly fiction." I've found that if I don't give this little speech, 80% of the people will take a quick look and leave. If I do the little speech, there is more like an 80% chance that they'll at least take the time to look and a decent chance they'll buy.

This requires that I size up the person rather quickly. I have to realize when a person wants help, or when they want to be left alone, (or a common scenario, they want to be left alone long enough to acclimate, and then they want help.) It does no good to ask, "Can I help you, because 99% of the time they'll say, 'I'm just looking.....' so all you're doing is inviting a negative answer. Instead, you say, "If I can help you find anything, let me know...."

So all this requires reading people quickly. Occasionally you get the people who give off all the likely signals, and you spend an inordinate amount of time on them, and they walk away. Then, six months later, just as you forget them, they do it again. Usually, they don't fool me a third time.

Meanwhile, I've had to really change my attitude toward browsers. 10 years ago, I was mostly a destination store, with very little walk by traffic (Same location, mind you, the town changed around me.) So, I expected to sell to most people who actually bothered to walk in the door. Now, I've had to learn to accept that most people who walk in the door won't buy from me. At the same time, because of all the pop culture stuff I've brought in, I have the potential to sell to anyone.

In other words, I need to take a wait and see attitude.

It is always interesting to watch a new employee. They can't read the signals. They expend the same amount of energy on every customer, with predicatable results. It pains me to watch them wasting so much time and energy on people who have no intention of buying anything, who, to be fair, are radiating to anyone who can read that they aren't going to buy anything. But it is also fun to watch the surprises, the person I never would have expected buy something.
In the end, the results in sales don't warrant the amount of time and energy expended, but it is interesting to see how I can be wrong.

I used to take the employee aside after one of these encounters and explain what signals they were giving. Now, I just let them learn on their own, and occasionally get a brand new regular out of the process. It is the same principle that works with new stores. They don't know what they are doing wrong, and occasionally stumble onto something right. It is a necessary process for a newer store to be more open to the possibilities; they are fresh and bright-eyed and bushy- tailed, and are willing to kiss a whole lot of frogs to get the occasional princely customer.

Sometimes, like right now with all the changes to my store, I can generate the same 'new' enthusiasm, and sure enough, I pick up sales I wouldn't ordinarily. Unforunately, I believe it's impossible to maintain in the long run. It is the equivilent of running everywhere, whether it's important to get there fast, or not; of fixing a gourmet meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner; of dressing in your best cloths whether you're going out to a dinner or just outside to pick up the newspaper.

So you blink, and make a snap decision, and live with it. But you have to leave it open to the possiblitity that anyone can become a customer. Be polite and helpful, and watch and see.

LATER; I realize that my 'triage' analogy may sound harsh and dismissive, but really it isn't.

Let's say you have two customers walk in the door at the same moment. The first one, a middle aged man says, "I'm just wasting time while my wife shops next door." The other, a 30 something guy, heads toward the graphic novels like he knows what he's doing. The first guy says, "Wow, what an interesting store. My kids would love this store." Both statements are DEAD giveaways that he's not going to spend anything; that along with the original 'wasting time' comment has reduced the odds to basically zero, zero point one. Meanwhile, the second guy has said, "I hear this Y- The Last Man series is really good. My hometown store never seems to have it in stock." This is red meat to me. The second customer is now almost a certainty, especially if I spend time chatting with him.

Wouldn't it be silly to spend the same amount of time on each guy? My day is spent with such decisions.