Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping

Differences in shopping styles persist between men and women. Women still do most of the buying, and do so competently, while men are more haphazard and “reckless.” A man will walk faster, will ignore anything not on his list, won’t ask for directions, and leaves in a hurry: “It’s as if the sheer fact of being in the store is a threat to his masculinity” (103-04). Men are more comfortable shopping for clothes at stores such as LL Bean, Cabela’s, and REI that feature hunting and fishing equipment.

Women are much pickier: Where men buy 65% of what they try on, women purchase only 25%; women also check price tags more often than men, who are therefore more easily sold on more expensive items. At the grocery store, roughly two-thirds of all purchases are impulse buys. Men are more impulsive than women, and they buy more treats when their kids accompany them. When with their wives, men like to pay, and they tend to spend more.

Men also spend more at American Girl stores, where girls can select dolls dressed in historical costumes, with matching outfits, accessories, books, and films for the girls; these stores create “one of the best engines ever invented to take money out of Daddy’s pocket” (106). Much as men hate asking for directions, they also prefer to learn about products by themselves, “preferably from written materials, instructional videos or computer screens” (107). Women ask store personnel for this information. Men spend one shopping session to look and a second session to buy, while women often take three trips to make up their minds.

More time spent shopping translates to more purchases, but when men accompany women, the women spend less time shopping. Underhill declares, “If I owned Chico’s or Victoria’s Secret, I’d have a place where a woman could check her husband like a coat” (109), with comfy chairs and a big TV tuned to sports programming. Another approach is to locate stores men like—computers, car parts—next to shops women frequent so the men can occupy themselves.

Both men and women work full-time, and both are single longer than they once were. Men are more involved in kitchen and laundry, and “home appliances have gotten more macho as men have gotten less so” (113). Women visit hardware stores more often, and those stores have morphed to become less gender-specific.

In the gay community, there are fashion trendsetters whose choices later influence the straight world, but retailers often miss those cues. Many gay and lesbian shoppers struggle to find clothing tailored to their gender and preferences. It’s an under-served market, a sales opportunity partially overlooked.

Men are more involved than they used to be in mundane, day-to-day chores involving their children, including shopping for them. Sales are lost because children’s size charts are inscrutable, and because a dad pushing a baby stroller can’t get it through the narrow aisles of the jeans section to shop for his own clothing. Also, diaper bags should look more macho.

If men’s toiletries and related products are stuffed into a corner next to women’s fragrant-smelling products—where women are expected to buy them for their men—guys will shy away. More men would buy protective skin lotions if the packaging had a more masculine flair and was displayed elsewhere than in the women’s sections of stores. In drugstores, a section dedicated to men’s needs, including shaving cream, elastic bandages, athletic wear, and books and magazines on grooming and health would likely improve those stores’ bottom lines. 

Women tend to put more time and care into shopping. Past traditions dictated that women marry, raise a brood, and stay home while the husbands worked. Shopping “was (and in many parts of the world, remains) women’s main realm of public life" (124). Today, women work, and shopping is no longer an escape from homebound solitude but a chore to be shoehorned into a busy schedule. Despite having more income, women simply have less time to shop. They sometimes rush through the task in the manner of men.

Women still like to shop together, and retailers try to encourage this with discounts, extra seating, and on-site cafes, because women spend more in teams. Women are much more careful than men in examining and pricing products. In all, they want a better shopping experience than men care about, including plenty of space and no jostling.

Women prefer to shop at the ends of counters rather than along a crowded side, and retailers know this, so they create more nooks and crannies that offer corners. They don’t like to bend down to retrieve an item, fearing the “butt-brush factor” of getting pushed or poked in the rear, especially by men. Products sell better, then, at a standing level. Women read product labels, and if they can’t do so without being jostled in a crowd, they won’t buy. Women will linger in store sections away from the crowded main aisles, so stores create cul-de-sacs of items that women can browse quietly. In fast-food restaurants, while men like to eat near the front, women prefer the quieter rear sections.

Greeting card shops are patronized mainly by women, who want wide aisles and the quietness of condolence cards located far from the laughter in the dirty birthday card section. Women look through many cards before choosing, causing wear and tear on the merchandise; a display rack that shows the cards, inside and out, would fix that problem but hasn’t yet been adopted. Cards tend to be shelved from a mere foot above the floor, where women are forced to bend over to inspect them, and where kids can pull them out and soil or damage them. It’s better to raise the display a couple of feet, even if shoppers must reach up to retrieve items from the top shelf.

In the cosmetics department, women used to receive makeup sessions performed by elegantly made-up women in lab coats, a hard-sell approach that steered patrons toward expensive brands. Today, women are free to try cosmetics for themselves and can determine pricing without having to ask.

The recent gender revolt in shopping has made women’s merchandise “safe for guys” (130). Likewise, men’s items have become more appealing to women. As women fill the ranks of independent wager-earners and homeowners, they are more involved with house maintenance. Chains like Home Depot and Lowe’s have reconfigured their stores to be friendlier—less overtly masculine, easier for beginners to navigate, with more lifestyle displays and more female salesclerks—to draw women’s patronage. Their TV commercials often feature women. As Underhill explains: “The retail hardware industry has gone from an Erector Set mentality to a ‘let’s play house’ approach, from boys-only to boys and girls playing together” (131).

With high-tech devices, women focus on usefulness. They often become early adopters of electronic devices and software, not for the “gee-whiz” factor that draws men, but for the labor-saving value. Car sellers, traditionally oriented toward the male buyer, have been slow to realize that women often make the family transport purchasing decisions. Women dislike male-oriented showrooms and service departments. Often, women would rather search computerized information sources than try to get answers from the men there and much prefer buying from a saleswoman.

At gas stations, simply providing clean restrooms does wonders for sales to women drivers.

The elderly of 2025 derive mainly from the Baby Boom generation that was raised in the indulgent 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s and controls plenty of disposable retirement income. They see themselves not as old but as eternally youthful and merely inconvenienced by aging. Even so, infirmities figure into their needs as shoppers.

Most shoppers read labels and packages as part of their decision making. Manufacturers tend to add more information onto very small package surfaces, forcing the print size to become even smaller—sometimes as small as six-point—to fit everything in. Printed communications need to be larger so that old eyes can read them, especially on laxative bottles and other medicines, or the elderly won’t buy them.

As eyes age, corneas become yellowed, making blues and greens harder to distinguish and yellow itself harder to use in merchandise. More contrast and more black, white, and red are called for. Older eyes receive less light, so display illumination should be bright. At restaurants with an older clientele, high-contrast menus, with pictures and large print, will show fewer items but lead to higher sales.

As the elderly continue to age, they’ll need wider aisles for their walkers and wheelchairs, fewer steps to negotiate, larger elevators, more ramps, and fewer products shelved at floor level. Radio Shack put hearing-aid batteries near the floor, but the very customers who needed them had the most trouble bending down. The batteries were moved up, and sales improved.

Waiting areas with chairs act as rest stops that make it easier, and more likely, for older shoppers to visit stores. Chairs should be easy to get into and out of. Rest areas also provide retailers with captive audiences who will look at nearby signage and displays. ATMs, and all self-serve machines, should have large buttons and large-print screens. Do-it-yourself machines can be confusing, but older shoppers prefer learning from an older employee, not by “officious junior VP wannabes” (145).

By 2035, the population of Americans older than 65 will have doubled, and with them will come a much greater use of electric wheelchairs, tricked out with cup holders, device chargers, and elaborate paint jobs. Many other products, from cosmetics and toothpaste to leisure clothing, will add lines for older shoppers. Bedding will become “quasimedical” in nature and easier for the elderly to use. Many items currently sold from a cramped corner of a store, such as adult diapers, will move forward and sport name brands like Calvin Klein and Estée Lauder. 

Today, most married people work, so they must shop when they can, which often means bringing the kids. Children have become a big marketing target: They must be catered to, or their parents won’t show up. Stores should provide “[a]utomatic doors, wide aisles and no steps” to make it easy for families with infants and toddlers to shop there (153). Items children like should be within their easy eyesight—kids can be great sales agents, especially with respect to candy—although shelves also must be kid-proofed to prevent accidents.

Bookstores are good at putting merchandise at appropriate eye levels—low for the very young, higher for older kids, up top for adult gift buyers—but they usually fail to place easy chairs in the children’s section so that kids can sit in a parent’s lap for a moment to test-read a book. Worse, most children’s books have poor labeling of reading age or topic, making it hard for adults to find books for their kids or grandkids. If a store is too child-friendly, kids begin to take over, rushing about and frustrating their parents. In stores for grown-ups, kids need a corner within eyesight where they can play with sturdy toys, watch videos, or use coloring books so Mom and Dad can deliberate with the sales rep.

Teens are very fashion-conscious and won’t shop at stores that look like, or play music for, their parents’ generation. They often need to bring those parents and their wallets when they shop for clothes, but being seen with Mom or Dad can be embarrassing. A layaway plan, or an allowance-deposit system, could remedy this.