Holiday shopping News

[differenceblog]

The holiday season in the United States brings a renewed interest in stories impacting the retail industry to mainstream media outlets. Reflecting this, two stories about gender differences in the ways men and women shop made the news this week.

CNN Money (2007) reported on the "Online Holiday Shopping Survey" by GSI Commerce (n = 2,818, online

Comments

[ephraim_oakes]

i hope i never figure out how to order dinner online (or if that exists in my town) - the only thing that keeps me from ordering food way more than i can afford is that i hate the phone.

as a guy who probably seems like i do a lot of research before making big purchases, i can say that in my case the 'research' is less about gathering facts and prices and comparing items (though i do some of that) and more about getting comfortable or familiar with the idea of spending a bunch of money on that thing, but i don't know if that would be apparent to the outside observer. sometimes i even do that with small purchases like books or cds.

[astrogeek01]

I think that's part of the reason that some women "shop" too. It comes in handy when I want to sneakily buy something a friend is looking at for their birthday and convince them we can "go back for it later if we want to". Heh Heh Heh. (this obviously only works in stores, I don't look over people's shoulders when they're shopping online)

[astrogeek01]

God yes. Leave me alone, people! If I want something and can't find it I will find you! Back the fuck off! Grrr GRrr.

I hate shopping.

The "women shop" idea I think is supplanted for men by doing research ahead of time. I figure I probably behave more like a male shopper in a lot of ways. I do a lot of research ahead of time, figure out what I want to buy and sometimes even research some prices online before I do buy. When I bought my laptop I figured out exactly the specs I wanted, couldn't decide between two brands which both had good reviews, and waited for one of them to go on sale (they were roughly the same price otherwise). I purchased it online, and then went to the store to pick it up. Heh.

I guess what I'm saying is, I think men *do* shop, they just don't do it in the store.

[rhye]

Hmm, I'm just like you, and it has me thinking, I wonder if this is not a gender bias we are looking at but an education bias? I think a higher percentage of men are college-graduates in this country than women. Or maybe women who stay at home use shopping at the store as a reason to get outside the home? (And maybe men who stay at home would do the same, but more women stay at home.) I just feel like there could be a lot of secondary effects hidden in this data, and it seems like everyone I know, who are mostly of a certain educational and economic standing, hates shopping and preferrs to research on-line. *remains unconvinced*

[differenceblog]

As of the 2000 census, slightly more men than women had at least a Bachelor's degree, but women are rapidly overtaking men on educational attainment (in the US) (see Wikipedia)

However, I suspect that your second guess ("women who stay at home use shopping at the store as a reason to get outside the home") may be a HUGE part of the gender difference we're seeing here.

[rhye]

These results actually surprise me. There's nothing I hate more than interacting with salespeople. But anecdotally, I've seen this same attitude from almost all my friends of all genders. Maybe I choose antisocial friends!

[differenceblog]

Maybe I choose antisocial friends!

Could be. Honestly, the survey results that I post about always feel like they're coming from another planet to me. The gender "divide" is really narrow in the people I associate with, and that's on purpose. I don't tend to spend a lot of time around really RAH-RAH-MANLY men or WOO-HOO-FEMMEY women. They kind of make me insane.

As a result, survey results that represent the general population often seem just wrong to me, but I recognize that I have self-selected a non-representative group.