Retail anthropologist Paco Underhill autographs a book during his tour of the retail hotspots. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Our good ol? New Market, probably the country?s earliest attempt at organised retail, could well match the vitality and resplendence of Istanbul?s Grand Bazaar and Spice Market, the souks of Cairo or the Vasco Da Gama Centre in Lisbon. Only, it could do with a ?little cleaning up and better access?.

New York-based shopping scientist Paco Underhill, who helps companies understand what motivates the behaviour of today?s consumer, feels the core issue at New Market isn?t about the loss of footfall but about not understanding the opportunities.

?The romance of the clock tower and the central courtyard or the nostalgia of Nahoum?s needs to be leveraged better. This can only be done if it?s easy to get there, certainly not on a bridge of floating bricks like I did this morning,? Underhill told Metro on Wednesday.

The retail guru, whose best-selling Why We Buy has been translated into 26 languages and has sold more than any other book on retail, is in town for Thursday?s CII Eastern Region retail conclave.

He spent the day soaking in the sights and sounds of some of Calcutta?s malls and marketplaces, kicking off with a walkthrough of New Market.

?Istanbul?s Grand Bazaar is a 17th Century market that has discovered the 21st Century by being safe, comfortable and accessible while still remaining exotic. New Market needs to do just that by way of reinvention. Historically, 90 per cent of retail places die over time, and only those that can adapt and evolve, stay afloat,? observed the retail anthropologist.

Underhill suggested drop-off and pick-up zones and also the possibility of turning the Lindsay Street courtyard into a pedestrian plaza. ?Business Improvement Districts, which work on cleanliness and safety issues, can be useful here to forge a better partnership between public planning and private capital.?

Next stop was Forum, where mall developer and managing director Rahul Saraf was lauded for rising to the retrofit challenge of converting a commercial property into a happening retail place. ?You have to fight your battles and accept your scars. Nonetheless, the learning curve continues.?

Lessons in signage design and angles and how to get traffic into the mall?s alleyways, ?not just the highways and streets?, followed, even at subsequent touchdowns at Pantaloons and Westside in 22, Camac Street.

And, of course, the need to sharp-focus on children. ?Kids can be enemies or allies. The important role for the store is to turn them into allies.?

This could be achieved by seeing things from their perspective, with floor-level sit-outs, skateboards and infant-height mirrors, he told Pantaloons? Manish Agarwal.

A little gift-wrap station for the ?pleasures of watching the process? was the prescription for Westside store chief Amit Dharap, while at Crossword, he gave the audience a sneak peek into his forthcoming work.

?The Worship of Goddesses (working title) talks about the changing working pattern of women and how that has affected retail,? said Underhill.