The Three Kinds of People Who Shop at the Mall. Which Kind are You?

There are three kinds of people who shop at the mall, according to Values Thinking advocates: Lovers, White Rabbits and Flip-Floppers.

Values Thinking is a new approach to understanding consumer behavior. It can loosely be explained this way: knowing the shared values of a group of people is the best way to predict how the group will behave. 

Malls are struggling in the changing consumer landscape, so it’s no surprise that retailers are scrambling to use Values Thinking. “Influencing behavior is the holy grail of marketing,” says David Allison, best-selling author, speaker and the founder of a values-based profiling system called Valuegraphics.

According to industry veteran Manny Steiner, the Chief Placemaking Officer at Steiner Placemaking Advisory, "this is a new way for us to create strategies, an advantage that we have not had before. I believe it can help erase the well-deserved stigma malls have earned with younger (and even older) shoppers: using values to motivate consumers is a game-changer."

The Lovers

18% of mall shoppers go to the mall about once a week. They love window shopping, and wish that their mall was bigger, because they love it so much. They are loyal to “their” mall, and they probably collect something. They have a tight circle of friends, who probably love going to the mall too. 

 The White Rabbits

22% of mall patrons see a trip to the mall as a necessity. They are in a rush, and the experience for them is all about how convenient the mall can be. They go monthly for only an hour each time, but they’d like it to take even less time. They want a smaller mall that sells only the things they need, and nothing that they don’t. They use their credit cards freely, are very sentimental, and see themselves as spiritual in some way. 

 The Flip-Floppers 

31% can be a Lover or a Necessitist depending on the day. As a result, when they visit the mall it’s either to hang out and spend a few hours or it’s to run in and out in less than an hour. They love uniqueness, so anything they can’t find anywhere else will keep them coming back for more. They love sports, are struggling with some debt, and like others to know when they’ve tried something new. 

“But none of that is really important,” says Allison. “To influence behavior you need to know what buttons to push.” In other words, what are the values that trigger behavior?

Once these hot-button values are known, a mall can create experiences and campaigns to laser-concentrate on exactly the right factors that will influence shoppers, and stop worrying about the rest.  

• If you are a Lover, you won’t do anything unless it pushes your buttons around loyalty, possessions, experiences and self-expression. These shoppers will respond well to loyalty programs and events they can attend with their friends, especially if the event includes shopping privileges that they have earned. Want it to be even more irresistable? The event should involve some kind of self-expression...teach them how to be wardrobe stylists for example.

• White Rabbits will decide where they go and shop based on how well the mall caters to the things they care about most: experiences, environmentalism, health/well-being and financial security. Why not design a VIP lounge where they can wait for phoned-in purchases to be shuttled down from the mall level and into their car? It should have great WiFi and health/well-being features. 

 And the Flip-Floppers? 

“They are an interesting group,” says Allison. They can behave like Lovers or White Rabbits depending on how you trigger them with experiences, personal growth, meeting basic needs and self-expression. 

“One last thing to keep in mind,” says Allison. “For all groups, even the smaller segments we didn’t talk about here, togetherness in some form is hugely important.” For mall shoppers, togetherness comes in the guise of relationships, family, or even the more generic desire for belonging. “Togetherness is so important we generally consider these values the cost of entry if you want to use Values Thinking."  

Next time you find yourself in the mall, here’s a fun game to play. Start by figuring out what kind of mall shopper you are. A Lover? A White Rabbit? Or a Flip Flopper? Then look around and notice how the busiest stores around you are those that are triggering shoppers' values… and that you find yourself inexplicably drawn to those stores yourself.