MORE RETAIL UPDATES: My local mall is also replacing some of its hard wooden benches with comfy chairs like these (I actually took this picture on Wednesday, when it was a lot emptier), which seem to be very popular. The comfy-chair revolution continues apace!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Frank Lynch emails:

Some years ago I read “Why We Buy,” by Paco Underhill. Underhill is a market researcher who emphasizes behavioral observations in retail settings; he and his crew will descend on a store and watch how people behave, and make recommendations on layout, etc.

One observation is that the longer you are in a store, the more likely you are to buy something. Now, couple that with this: women shop longest in a store when they are with a female friend, second longest when alone, and least longest when with their husband/boyfriend. We seem to give off body language which indicates impatience (go figure!). So, Underhill recommends making men as comfortable as possible — not just providing comfortable seating, but also magazines they’re comfortable reading, such as Sports Illustrated.

Glad to see your mall is doing this; consumer confidence hasn’t turned around yet, and retailers need to try this.

I’d rather have Wi-Fi than SI, but fair enough. I wasn’t familiar with Underhill, but via the miracle of Google found this article. He seems like a smart guy.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ronnie Schreiber emails:

You would think that the malls would want to encourage men to shop, not sit. Underhill’s suggestions assume that women do all the shopping in malls. They may be the majority of mall shoppers and it does make sense to maximize revenue from your core market, but I’d think that making sure that the mall has specialty stores that appeal to men wouldn’t hurt. An upscale tool store or auto memorabilia shop might make more sense than La-Z-Boy recliners and a few issues of SI scattered around.

Yes, though I doubt Underhill would disagree. My local mall seems to have an endless array of teenagers’ clothing stores and jewelry stores. I wouldn’t mind a few more places that appealed to me. Of course, that requires the mall to think holistically about luring in shoppers — and I suspect that a lot of stores that I’d like couldn’t pay the very steep rents that mall stores have to pay.