How Men and Women Do Their Shopping

How men and women do their shopping

One of my friends called me asking to pick her up from the store where she was shopping. When I found her inside the store and asked what happened to her, she came up with a story. Her husband and she decided to take one car to do the shopping and arrange some other business in the bank. Her husband came up with a plan that he will drop her in the store and drive to the bank while she will be shopping. They decided that he would pick her up when he will be done with the bank. But an hour later, when he came and found that she was not done with her shopping list yet, he became angry; moreover, his wife had in her shopping cart a set of glasses that were not on her shopping list. After a tirade that she always wastes her time and his money doing shopping, he left the store.

Many times after this accident, I noticed that most women and men behave in different way doing their shopping. For example, women stay much longer in the stores than men, buy a lot of small but necessary purchases, such as a kitchen towel or a new pillow case, and try to reduce expenses using coupons, manufacturer's rebates or buying stuff on sale. In contrary, most men prefer not to bother themselves with coupons and usually buy needed thing right when they find it. They usually avoid a lot of things that are important for women, such as embroidered serviette or plate covered with ornament.

As I have done some observation and questioned my friends, I understood that women have different approach toward shopping than men do, at least among my acquaintances.

When women shop, they try to buy things that will perfectly fit their style or interior of their house. They are looking for particular color, shape and size of whatever thing they need -- saucepan, chair, or lamp. I believe when woman buys, her first priority is prettiness, or good look. On second place is practical side of the item. In most cases, women choose a dress that makes her slender and shoes that make her taller even if all these things are unpractical and uncomfortable. However, regular man does not pay much attention to how pretty he will look in a new suit; he cares more how comfortable it is.

Most men I know are not picky about their cloth and do not spend a lot of time in any store. One of my male friends told me that he usually goes straight to the section where an item he is interesting in supposes to be. If it is men cloth's section, he determines the location of the pants quickly scanning the space. With a little doubt that his size might be changed, he grabs a pair of pants or better two to be sure that with additional pair of jeans he could avoid or postpone his next visit to the cloth section. More likely, he will seize a shirt that probably matches his new pants on his way to the register. As a result, he is done shopping in ten minutes.

In contrast, women act in completely different way. One of my female friends says,"When I go to any store, I usually spend a lot of time there. I like to go through all sections of the store because I have to take care about most of needs of my husband and children. Also, there might be some things on sale that I need. Especially, I love to spend time in the women cloth's sections, look through the new models of cloth from Gucci, Calvin Klein, Dona Karen, or Giorgio Armani. I love to try on new things, combining different designs, colors and styles. Yes, I have spent a lot of time doing it, but I got an excellent wardrobe and developed my own fashion style."

Woman likes to walk between aisles of cloths, picturing herself or her children in those new cute dresses and costumes. She needs to touch material, feel its silky-smooth or velvet-soft fabric, if you want, smell it and rub against her cheek before she would buy anything.

For instance, my husband and I decided to buy a new digital camcorder a few months ago. He without hesitation went to his computer, opened a few web sites, such as Digital Photography Review, Consumers DV Review, and others, did some research about features of various models of digital video camcorders, and chose the camera he liked. Also, he read some comments of current owners of the chosen