Men shop quickly, women love to search

Flickr/jimmyharris

According to researchers at Brunel University, when it comes to shopping we revert to evolutionary roles – men are the hunters, women are the gatherers. Women like searching and finding the best values – they enjoy the process of shopping. Men, on the other hand, like the thrill of the kill and the outcome of shopping.

The study at Brunel was collected from 14 countries and whilst shopping styles vary between cultures they found that the hunter-gatherer scenario still held true.

”Men’s emotional response to shopping comes at the ‘kill’ — the moment of purchase, when their heart rate actually quickens,” said Brunel’s Charles Dennis, who along with Tamira King released the findings in 2005.

Men often do research before they get to the store, especially with the help of the Internet. In a survey done last year by ShopSmartmag.org, 52 percent of the men said they research before making a purchase.

”Men . . . see shopping as a mission, going straight for what they want in a purposeful way. The focus is on speed,” Dennis said in a news release.

Generally speaking most of us don’t take men on shopping trips because, well, its a bit of a pain. However, when you’re shopping at an airport you usually have no choice – unless you’ve ditched your partner for the holiday too. So how can airports deal with these different shopping styles?

Have “parking areas” for men – preferably with F&B so you’re not loosing revenue while they’re sitting there waiting for their female partners to return.
Remember that most people don’t go backwards in their shopping journey so if you have a walkthrough retail area (which many airports do these days) before you get to the seating area, you may have a problem. Consider some seating throughout the walkthru, maybe put a bar in where the men can drink some of the same duty free delights they’re purchasing (or considering purchasing). That then feeds into the male’s desire to pre-research and narrow down what they want before they go and buy. Oh but be careful you don’t put it anywhere near the perfume – most men hate being caught in the side spray from perfume spritzers.
Display some “quick hit” male “kills” just before or adjacent to areas where the women might want to browse. That way the man gets his sense of accomplishment and the women get the excuse to spend even more because after all their bloke has already gotten something and hence we have the right to spend twice as much as he just did.
Position more interactive male usages or even displays near where the more time consuming female browsing areas are – that way the man is likely to be more likely to get absorbed and not notice as much that their partner has just spent 30mins deciding which mascara to buy.
Have iconic & unique meeting spots which are easily distinguished by both men & women (remembering they wayfind differently) so when they do seperate or when the men are parked, they can both find themselves again. This is an area which airports notoriously do badly. Many airport operators think the areas look different (after all they have different tiles or different chairs) but these are not meaningful for wayfinding. What works (unfortunately enough) are those awful frog, rabbit, lobster sculptures which are as ugly as anything but you know exactly what someone means and can easily find it when they say “I’ll meet you at the frog”. What also works is to orientate around strong iconic retail brands – I’ll meet you at McDonalds or I’ll meet you in the coffee area next to Swarovski (which you can always see in an airport because of the lights twinkling off the crystal), Lego etc. Fountains work, candy shops (if you have a really big one). The point is that its something which stands out at a distance and where there is no confusion from one to another in the airport.