Rating: 
Summary: Phenomenal Insights
Review: An amazing book if you're a business CEO, marketing manager, or just an avid shopper. Paco does an incredible job of analyzing shopper habits, tendencies, and patterns. Learning these patterns can help businesses better position, market, and arrange their products for maximum conversion of browsing to closing sale. His chapters on male and female shopping tendencies is intriguing with Paco noting that women enjoy browsing clothes as part of the "process" of shopping while men tend to go directly into a store with an item in mind, find it, and get out as quickly as possible. Nothing striking yet except Paco noticed that the pattern changes when it comes to electronics. Men like to browse and play as part of the process whereas women walk in with something in mind, go to a sales clerk, and get out with a purchase. Other fascinating glimpses into people's purchasing patterns are covered as well. The only disappointing element was the lack of attention given to e-commerce. It would seem that there are similar purchasing patterns online (such as Amazon's recomendation engine) but Paco only skims over e-commerce. Maybe that will be an upcoming book...
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Summary: SOME OF US LIKE OUR BOOKS IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
Review: WHY DON'T YOU ADD THE SPANISH EDITION TO YOUR SPANISH LANGUAGE BOOK SECTION?
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Summary: Why We Buy...One Contrarian Woman's View
Review: Mr. Underhill's book provides for entertaining reading and gives many tips for retailers on how to capture and retain consumer loyalty. That is where his book stops short for me. Manufacturers need to conduct much deeper research about consumer and brand loyalty. Product and service attributes (such as those described by Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry in their book, "Delivering Quality Service")--reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles--provide a much better framework for me in understanding the drivers behind consumer brand loyalty. I'd recommend QFD (Quality Function Deployment)over Underhill's research methods if I were trying to understand my consumers. The fact that a car has a vanity mirror, a bathroom has fancy soap/wallpaper, or aisle width reduces the "butt-brush factor" will not influence or drive my shopping or brand preferences. (On a side note, I and several of my colleagues also found Mr. Underhill's description of women shoppers to be somewhat chauvinistic and bordering on the offensive.) Frankly, meet my consumer needs in the aforementioned attributes, and whether shopping online or in-store, I'll be loyal.
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Summary: Never shop the same again!
Review: The book is an excellent book for those in the retail industry. I am looking at going into the Electronic commerce area of retail and this book has made me think of ways that the proposed methods used in the normal retail environment can be applied in E-COmmerce. It is easy to read and the examples are also good. It is not just for a particular group in the retail industry but for everyone. Having lived in the States I can relate to a lot of the topics and I can also compare the retail experience in Europe with that of the States.
Rating: 
Summary: Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping
Review: Don't waste your time reading this book if you are looking for concrete ideas to better operate your retail store. Underhill presents a hodgepodge of concepts and ideas about the retail environment. If you operate a book store, drug store or computer store you might find some helpful information, but if you are looking for a general guide to heip you figure out the shopper a retail operation other than those listed above you'd better look elsewhere for information. As they say, the author is a legend in his own mind. On a final note I found Underhill's crude language when describing his own shopping experience in a drug store (see page 209) in quite poor taste.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Underhill has undermined his own defense of retail anthropology as a respectable scientific discipline by issuing a popular-styled assemblage of entertaining anecdotes. The clutter of information and opinion is fine for casual shoppers of merchandising ideas, but does little to build a body of professional knowledge. While disappointed, I still recommend WWB because it is the only Underhill title to date.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: An excellent book. It's interesting that it has been criticized by shoppers for simply explaining why shoppers don't buy, which isn't news to shoppers. But the book wasn't really written for shoppers-it was written for sellers, who understand little of the shoppers predicament.Now if someone would just give this book to the powers that be at Blockbuster Video and the other stores where the staff bends over backward to say "hi" as you walk in (who cares?) but disappear as soon as you have picked your video...
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Summary: Why We Buy Helps Me Sell!
Review: Since I have never been an avid shopper (usually once or twice a year besides the grocery), I found this book absolutely enlightening! I find I "shop like the guys" in the stores the few times I go each year. Usually I give my neighbor money and she buys my clothes, etc., during her very frequent shopping trips. However, about a year ago I opened a Holistic Clinic and have started carrying items to fill needs of my bodywork clients and yoga students, etc. Paco's book really made a BIG difference in how I have done the presentation of products, signs, customer checkout, etc. My sales did indeed increase significantly! I'm in a Business Networking group and have recommended the book to the other 20 people in that group and loaned it to a few. I also recommended it to 3 of our local bookstores (including a very large chain), the post office, and have given it as a gift to two friends who are starting their own businesses. My husband teases me about "Well, what does Paco say?" This book is fun to read, extremely informative, and has made a great difference in my sales - and a newfound enjoyment in shopping for me! Thanks Paco!
Rating:
Summary: Great for shoppers
Review: If you like to shop, this book is for you. You'll recognize yourself in the shoppers Underhill describes, and find yourself laughing at how fickle you really are in your shopping preferences. I am surprised at the venom displayed in many of the other reviews. While Why We Buy isn't the best book ever written (not many nonfiction books are), it certainly is entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: not for shoppers
Review: A better title for this book would be "How we Shop and Why We Don't Buy." We don't buy because the aisles are too narrow, we can't reach the product, we can't try the product, there are no baskets to carry purchases, the lines are too long, etc., etc. There's absolutely nothing here that shoppers don't know.
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