Assignment 6: Heather Miller

There are many devices in place to "encourage" consumerism within malls. We have all fallen into these traps, going in to a mall to buy one specific thing from one specific store and left with four bags full of stuff from four different stores that we didn't know we needed until we saw it in the store window.

Saturday around 3 p.m., I walked around Phipps Plaza looking for the designs in place that lead to unplanned purchases. It was a sunny day after almost a week of rainy weather. The mall is anchored by Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Belk. The building is layed out in an L shape. Less than 10% of the stores are local stores. Those that are local are either service businesses (such as a hair salon and tailor) or food based (such as a candy store and cupcake bakery). Mall directories were located within site of every escalator. The mall also provided convenient portable mall maps located on the side of all directories. There is also a smart phone app with a mall map for the convenience of the Phipps shopper. The up and down escalators are located everywhere! You don't have to walk far to go upstairs; therefore this is not one of the mall's ways of encouraging unplanned purchases. However this technique does not seemed to be needed. The clientele found in Phipps Plaza are upper-middle class adults (expected with stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Gucci, and Tiffany & Co.) who seemed to be more than willing to take their time strolling through the mall and looking in the windows. The few teenagers I saw were with their parents. I also saw a few upper middle-class seniors, however the main clientele seemed to be middle aged.

The unplanned purchase seems to be encourage at Phipps through their window decoration. It is hard to tell through this photo but the window of Gucci encompassed two outfits, one male and one female, with a Parisian background. The glass had decals that made the window look like a postcard of a romantic destination. I did not particularly like the outfit by itself but within that setting it had a certain appeal to me. This process of an exotic window environment was repeated throughout the mall. As you can also see from this photo, comfy seating was located throughout the mall. These seats always face towards the shops allowing those sitting there to contemplate their need for the items displayed in the window! These seats also seemed to be frequented by men (who I assumed were waiting for their lady counterparts shopping inside the facing store).

The third floor of the mall is comprised of the movie theater and food court. These loud activities are kept away from the calm atmosphere of the shops on the first two floors. This is one of the few places I saw children and mall cops. I walked through the first two floors without seeing one mall cop. However I saw a mall cop within a few minutes of being on the third floor. Much of the third floor is under construction (for a new small theme park... Legoland) so only three restaurants remained open. I enjoyed walking around this mall, a mall I cannot afford to shop at so rarely have a reason to go!