Shopping Habits In Modern Times And Reader Survey Results

Shopping habits have definitely evolved in my lifetime from when regional shopping malls reigned as king to the modern conveniences of buying products online. I’ve often wondered about the psychology behind what motivates us to shop, even if it’s just to browse.

In my younger days, before marriage, kids, and other adult responsibilities that filled my free time, I would often go “shopping”. Hunting down bargains was a sport that I thoroughly enjoyed and if none were to be had, then it wasn’t unusual for me to return home apparently empty-handed. But I didn’t see those times as for naught because I was also seeking style inspiration which one can find all around with no hit to the pocketbook.

While some in my family might have feared that I had a shopping addiction, I never had nor do I now have a compulsive buying disorder. Sure, I’ve admitted to partaking in a bit of “retail therapy” during times of stress and I’ve definitely experienced a rush upon finding a searched item on mark-down, but there’s more to it than that. In an article published by Healthline.com, a key hallmark of a person with a compulsive buying disorder is “… they are deeply in debt. If they are unable to stop shopping or have large amounts of shopping debt, they may have an addiction.” If that sounds like you or some you know, please seek professional assistance.

So other than a compulsion, why do we like to shop? To some extent, it’s the way we are wired and partly due to a survival instinct. According to a BBC article from 2015, the scarcity impulse harkens back to hunter and gatherer days when if you saw something you wanted, you grabbed it, even if you didn’t need it right then because you likely wouldn’t come across that item again. And even though most of us rarely find ourselves in a time of scarcities (barring pandemics and other natural disasters), a clearance rack can trigger that same “scarcity impulse” since those items are typically the last of what’s left.

Having buying power also makes us feel good. Besides the phenomenon of “retail therapy”, you are exercising your ability to make a choice whether or not you actually make a purchase. It can give a person a sense of control even if it’s over their own impulses. Color, style, value, etc … are the types of considerations and assessments we normally make in the purchasing process. Feeling good about a purchase can in turn boost our mental state.

Denim-on-denim outfit details:
EV1 jacket, Velvet Heart top, and Loft jeans (see March Style Remix) were all thrift store finds;
Franco Sarto sandals were a bargain retail score

Back in late November, the reader survey of that month on The Shopping Experience had seven questions plus one asking participants to identify which of the three age ranges listed that they fall into. The rest of the questions focused on general shopping habits. There were 35 responses to that survey which translates to a participation rate of about 23% based on the number of views that post had by the time the survey closed.

With such a small sample size, the age range breakdowns for the responses to each question don’t really yield much in the way of meaningful statistics other than over 1/2 are in the one I would’ve selected. Of the 35 respondents, 20 identified as over 60, 11 as 40 to 60, and 4 as being under 40.

The first question related to shopping was “nowadays, approximately how much of your shopping (clothing, food, home goods, etc) is done in-person vs online?”. There were five response choices shown as percentage splits with in-person shown first ranging from nearly all to 75% to 50% to 25% to nearly none. When looking at the 50/50 group as the middle ground, there’s about an even split between those that favor in-person shopping versus those who favor doing it online. The missing value for the blue wedge is 11.4%.

“On average, how often do you go shopping?” was the second question. Survey respondents were told that this applied to in-person and online shopping as well as to all types of items other than food. It would seem that nearly everyone is shopping at least a few times a month; however, 3 people did select the response “once a month or less”. The missing values for both the blue and purple wedges are 8.6%.

While preparing the survey, I’d come across an article about how retailers view and prepare for their shoppers which led me to ask the next question, “Which of the following best describes your approach to shopping?”. The seven choices were: Armed With Knowledge, Bargain Hunter, Browser, Impulsive, List Maker, Looky-loo, and Preferred Favorites. By far the greatest number of the respondents, 14 (40%) of them, selected Bargain Hunter. One person said that they are a Looky-loo and the rest were fairly equally divided among the other choices. (sorry, no graph)

You’ve probably run across the project management axiom of “Fast, cheap, or good? Pick two because you can’t have all three”. Something akin to that was behind the question “What is of greatest importance to you when you’re shopping? Speed, value, or atmosphere?” Not so surprisingly, ‘value’ was the overwhelming choice; however, I think it’s noteworthy that 70% of those who responded with ‘atmosphere’ were from the over-60 set. I guess, like me, they also miss the mystique of in-person shopping that we remember from a few decades ago.

To get a better sense of the respondents’ primary motivation for shopping, I then asked what they like best about it. The response choices were adventure, inspiration, nurturing, socializing, therapy, and “there’s nothing good about shopping”. I added that last one because I know that not everyone likes to shop and as expected, 4 selected that answer. The response that got selected the most was therapy with 40% and the next highest at 26% was ‘inspiration’. Adventure and nurturing were each selected by a few and no one selected socializing. (sorry, no graph for this one either)

Besides online shopping, nothing has changed the landscape of shopping quite like self-check-out registers. A majority of the survey respondents, nearly 56%, had no strong opinion either way while a handful gave them a thumbs-up and about 1/3 gave them a thumbs-down. The missing value for the blue wedge is 11.8%.

The last question on the survey was about shopping on Black Friday which had occurred just prior and there were five responses to choose from. The one getting the highest response was “didn’t do any shopping that weekend” with 48.6% and the next highest at 34.3% was “did all my shopping online”. That’s over 82% who stayed away from brick-and-mortar stores for those three days. The responses from the balance of survey participants was equally split among the remaining three answers; “I was up bright and early snapping up bargains”, “I slept in but went out later in the day”, and “I stayed home Friday but went out over the weekend”.

How did or would your answers to the questions in The Shopping Experience survey compare to these results? What changes in the landscape of shopping do you like and which do you hate? And if I’ve whetted your appetite for surveys, be sure to get your responses in for the latest one on Skincare Routines.

Stay well and let’s keep in touch! Subscribe, tweet, follow, friend, pin … all options are available. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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Note: This is an unsponsored post; however, some or all of the links to clothing items are associated with an affiliate program where I earned a few cents for each click.

Photo credit: MMPerez