Jamie Wiley, Mulvane junior, knows she has a problem. She shops almost daily and buys something almost every trip. Working about 20 hours a week as a cashier at Target doesn't help because it's the usual place for her sprees.
"I'll take about 10 minutes to go shopping and just use it as a pick-me-up," she says. "I don't need half of the stuff that I have, but I buy it anyway."
Another place she frequents is Massachusetts Street, always searching for her next purchase. She roams from shop to shop with the intention of buying something, but sometimes she can't find anything that appeals to her. Because she has so much already, she finds it difficult to satisfy the need to buy something when she shops.
Shopping has turned from buying the necessities to overindulging ourselves. Thomas Hine, author of I Want That! How We All Became Shoppers, says things become necessities because people buy them.
"Necessity is a difficult thing to define, but they don't necessarily include that gas grill," he says. "A person makes an initial lifestyle decision to purchase an item, such as a grill, and that is how we justify it to be a necessity for ourselves."
Hine says shopping is all about power. People use the objects they buy to have and derive power, whether it be over their own lives or over others. Shopping gives people the opportunity to make choices that have an immediate impact on life. "Shopping gives people the
power to change themselves and their circumstances. You can attempt to change to be like other people, which some see as a practical kind of freedom and choice," he says.
Shopping behaviors begin at an early age. Hine says that three out of four American babies visit a store by the age of 6 months. They are taken to supermarkets and discount stores and know the layouts of these stores by the age of three. At this point, they begin to recognize products and labels and are able to convey their desires towards their parents. Although they may not be making an actual purchase, children become c sumers at a very young age.
Shopping is also about societal acceptance. Hine says people buy items to belong to groups they want to be associated with. "It starts when we are children, when a 10-year old wants a pair of sneakers that the
cool kids have," he says. "This behavior stays with us our entire lives."
According to Hine, recent studies show that the most fashion-conscious people you will find at a contemporary shopping mall are females between 12 and 14 years of age.
Although the stereotypical idea of a shopper is a woman providing for her family, the concept isn't far from the truth. Hine says in the 1840s, a new model of the middle-class family began to emerge. That model became our ideal and has been with us since. Jobs for men moved away from the home as they began to work in factories. The wife then became responsible for cooking, cleaning and providing goods for the family. Now, even though American women are more likely to be in the workplace than at home, they account for 73 percent of all trips to the supermarket.
Hine attributes the difference in shopping habits between men and women to the way that we are conditioned by society. He says there are two reasons women are more dominant as shoppers: the increasing number of female heads of households and the change in the nature of work. In the past, men worked mechanical jobs and were the main buyers of appliances, tools and home renovation supplies. Now, women are showing interest in these areas.
"I'll take about 10 minutes to go shopping and just use it as a pick-me-up," she says. "I don't need half of the stuff that I have,but I buy it anyway."
You can see this in the changes in hardware and home improvement stores. They are being changed to focus on the woman as a decorator on a larger scale." Hine says.
Just because women are portrayed as the dominant shopper doesn't mean that all women embrace shopping. Hine says the women who despise shopping do so because they have always been told to take it seriously when they have no interest in doing so. The preconceived
myths about men and shopping are also skewed, as one-third of all men like to shop.
"Many of them don't like it because of the way they perceive the environments of shopping, as many of them are not expected or welcome in department stores," Hine says. "I talked to a developer of a
shopping center who said the only valuable aspect of men when it comes to shopping is for them to take care of the children so that their wives will buy more."
Men who don't feel welcome in these settings often turn to Internet shopping. Studies show that men who shop online do so in a more playful way, going from item to item like women
do in stores, not necessarily knowing what they want. On the other hand, women shop online more like men do in stores, finding the item they need and making an immediate purchase. College students are also shopping on the Internet. Eighty-one percent of college students have made an online purchase, according to a study done by Greenfield Online, an internet-based survey company.
Internet shopping isn't going to surpass retail shopping anytime soon, but it will allow people to buy more things they weren't necessarily looking for.
Hine has a friend who purchased a book from an online retailer even though he had not been aware of the title until he received an e-mail from the online retailer that suggested he buy the book based on his previous purchases. He was offered the title at a lower price because he was a good customer. Although he didn't remember any past purchases that would give the company reason to suggest the book, he bought it anyway.
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