June 16th, 2008
Shopping For a New Improved You
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While men may get a thrill from the experience of paying, women love the experience of shopping itself. Paco Underhill explains why on page 116-117 of ‘Why We Buy‘ —
For many women, there are psychological and emotional aspects to shopping that are just plain absent in most men. Women can go into a kind of reverie when they shop — they become absorbed in the ritual of seeking and comparing, of imagining and envisioning merchandise in use. They then coolly tally up the pros and the cons of this purchase over that, and once they’ve found what they want at the proper price, they buy it. Women generally care that they do well in even the smallest act of purchasing, and they take pride in their ability to select the perfect thing, whether it’s a cantaloupe or a house or a husband.
Not that there’s anything superficial about the female relationship with consumption. In fact, it’s women, not men, who plumb the metaphysics of shopping — they illuminate how we human beings go through life searching, examining, questioning, and then acquiring and assuming and absorbing the best of what we see. At that exalted level, shopping is a transforming experience, a method of becoming a newer, perhaps even slightly improved person. The products you buy turn you into that other, idealized version of yourself: that dress makes you beautiful, this lipstick makes you kissable, that lamp turns your house into an elegant showplace.
Since most of us express our individuality almost exclusively as consumers, shopping has indeed become the most important tool in our quest for love and meaning, relationships and self-realization. And that’s increasingly true for both men and women.
It is easy to dismiss this quest as superficial and it is equally easy to dismiss a brands’ aspirations to be the interpreter of meaning as manipulative. However, this tryst between brands and shoppers does have the potential for a happy ending.
As we demand more of ourselves — as we aspire to be authentic to our true selves, responsible towards the environment, and connected to our communities — we are also demanding more of the brands we buy. In demanding more from brands, and in backing up our demands with our wallets, we are already making the brands we buy more authentic, more green and more rooted in our communities.
In the end, the brands we buy are mere mirrors that reflect our true selves. Once we realize that the quest for meaning starts and ends inside our minds, we can stop beings slaves to the brands we buy and become masters instead.
