Men & Shopping
Well, a piece of recent UK research shows that, for over 70% of men, even the thought of going shopping is enough to send their stress levels soaring before even stepping out of their front door.
The challenge of facing the shopping hoards, long queues and frazzled shop assistants while attempting to choose the right gift for loved ones creates peak stress levels equivalent to emergency situations experienced by fighter pilots or policemen going into difficult situations.
US research for American Express confirmed women are much more involved in gift giving than men, giving gifts to an average of 12.5 people, versus 8 for men. Women shop earlier for gifts than men; devote more time to selecting gifts, and are more successful in finding a desirable gift (60% more gifts selected by men are returned than those selected by women).
Male shoppers usually less comfortable and confident about trends, sizes, colours, fragrances, and many are embarrassed asking questions in “female” shops.
Blokes tend to be single-minded and focused on getting a present for one person even when the have two or three others to buy for, and many wives and girlfriends report being fed up with buying gifts for his parents or his children.
Men don’t wrap. Women do.
If you are in retail there is profit in answering these questions:
1. What can we do to make it really easy for our male shoppers to buy from us?
2. What process do we put in place to check to see that he is buying everything he could for everyone he should – from us?
3. What help can we provide in selecting gifts for the females in his life?
4. If we made “this goes with that” type recommendations, would that help him?
5. Could we provide a checklist to our male shoppers on which they could note her sizes for shoes, skirts, dresses, tops, underwear?
6. If it’s true that men only think in 7 colours would a colour-swatch match list help them choose from among our products?
