Call of the Mall : The Geography of Shopping by Paco Underhill

Another great Paco Underhill book. If you have read Why We Buy, then you’ll also love Call of the Mall. If you haven’t read Why We Buy then STOP. Put down everything and get that book first. Why We Buy is a masterful book for anyone that does marketing or into a product.

Call of the Mall is about … the mall. The mall is a shopping experience we all have either enjoyed or endured … and it is a new experience that has changed shopping. The mall itself is changing. Malls get facelifts and totally change character in less then 20 years. Some function totally differently. And malls in the US are different from those in Brazil or Japan.

Underhill’s job for the last 25 years has been to study shoppers. And he is incredibly observant. The Call of the Mall is a great book which is part marketing, part sociology. Put if you want to understand Americans, consumerism, or just marketing, this is a great book.