Thursday, July 05, 2007

My Dream Shopping Experience

I bought a suit at Men's Wearhouse a few years ago in 15 minutes. Walked in, saw the one I wanted, was fitted, had the tailoring done, and was out the door in 15 minutes.

[Short pause while the male readers smile in envy.]

Now I should note that I've purchased some suits since then at Men's Wearhouse and they didn't come close to The 15 Minute Record but the memory of that event still draws me back. I've also bought suits in other stores. None came close.

Which gets down to the well-known truth: Men hate to shop.

My wife and daughter spend large chunks of their lives shopping or discussing shopping. They plan shopping expeditions the way some people plan the conquest of Mount Everest. My son and I regard such discussions as the equivalent of people talking about their favorite root canal operations.

There are, of course, exceptions. I'm a book store lounger. Other guys spend sizable amounts of time in hardware stores, office supply shops, and even drug stores. Go figure.

In general, however, we regard shopping as a necessary evil; time away from doing real things such as hunting wild beasts, repairing the Corvette, or plowing the south forty. Or thinking about doing such things. We don't want to browse. For the most part, we want to get in and get out.

Despite their failure to live up to The Record, I suspect that Men's Wearhouse has built its business on addressing this primal male fear. By the time you get out of the fitting room, you find the crafty sales crew has arranged shirts and ties to go with the suit. Usually their selection of ties has been composed by Gen X buyers who favor mechanical designs that a Transformer might pick, so I pass on the choices.

But they get points for trying.

In the male shopper's fantasy world, they aren't striving to boost the sale - although that is certainly the case - as much as they are trying to facilitate my exit. The latter item is a good thing. It permits me to cut them some slack when they make a little extra sales push.

The reason why I am so forgiving is they are speaking my language; the lingo of the non-shopper. If they could pause from their tie-selecting duties, no doubt they would say, "We know you hate being here and so we've designed a routine to make this as fast and as painless as possible."

Bingo.

2 comments:

Rowan Manahan said...

We men - such simple beasts! I have one shop where I buy shoes. I buy them every 8-9 months, two pairs at a time. I have another shop where I buy shirts. I buy them ever 5-6 months, usually four at a time. I have another shop where I buy cheese. I ring ahead, they know what I usually order and sometimes I ask them to add in something extra of their choice. I arrive, I pay, total transaction time less than four minutes.

This makes sense to me.

Declan Chellar has a stunning post outlining why we think this way Michael. I highly recommend it - http://www.chellar.com/ballog/?p=177

Michael Wade said...

I love the picture that you put on your blog, Rowan. I'll be posting a link to it.