Female Shopper Research Articles

“Billions in Debt and Still Surviving”: Curing the Female Shopper in Confessions of a Shopaholic

This paper analyses P.J. Hogan’s Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) in three sections. In the first section, it studies how the film maps shopping as an illness that needs to be cured onto the body of its female heroine. It does so, as is argued here, by portraying her as a patient suffering from Compulsive Buying Disorder (CBD). In the second part, it traces how Confessions necessitates the cure of the female shopper, given its background of the Great Recession and how this holds generic significance for the romantic comedy. The paper then concludes by charting the heroine’s cure in group therapy as predicated upon the principle of the Foucauldian confession and how this then resolves the narrative as, what Diane Negra calls, one of “adjusted ambitions.”

“Billions in Debt and Still Surviving”: Curing the Female Shopper in Confessions of a Shopaholic

This paper analyses P.J. Hogan’s Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) in three sections. In the first section, it studies how the film maps shopping as an illness that needs to be cured onto the body of its female heroine. It does so, as is argued here, by portraying her as a patient suffering from Compulsive Buying Disorder (CBD). In the second part, it traces how Confessions necessitates the cure of the female shopper, given its background of the Great Recession and how this holds generic significance for the romantic comedy. The paper then concludes by charting the heroine’s cure in group therapy as predicated upon the principle of the Foucauldian confession and how this then resolves the narrative as, what Diane Negra calls, one of “adjusted ambitions.”

Women, Magazines and the Politics of Shopping: Holtby, Jameson and Woolf

Shopping was a vital part of the housewife’s work in the interwar era, an activity extending from her domestic identity as homemaker but realized through economic participation in the public sphere. Directed by the consumer capitalism that sustained them, interwar women’s magazines like Good Housekeeping (UK) portrayed the modern female shopper as rational, informed, and empowered by her consumer choices. This article explores responses to consumer capitalism that trouble this ideal by Winifred Holtby, Margaret Storm Jameson and Virginia Woolf in the pages of Good Housekeeping. It demonstrates the different ways these three prominent interwar women writers critiqued consumerism in essays published in this highly commercialized periodical. Jameson drew attention to the pervasive power of advertising in ‘Money is not Happiness’ (March 1929) and ‘Advertising as a Career for Women’ (August 1928), a contribution to Good Housekeeping’s serial careers column. Holtby considered the relationship between consumption and social class in ‘The Sable Standard’ (March 1932). In ‘The Docks of London’ (December 1931) and ‘Oxford Street Tide’ (January 1932), Woolf examined the exploitative workings of imperial trade and the capitalist illusion of the democratic availability of goods. Each of these writers, I argue, urged Good Housekeeping’s readers to engage critically with the politics of shopping.

CLAH Lecture: Harrods Buenos Aires. The Case of the Unwanted Dresses, 1912–1940

ABSTRACTIn 1912, a small department store called Harrods opened in Buenos Aires, one that by the 1920s expanded to almost a city block. Although named after the founder of the London store, the manager of Harrods London, Richard Burbidge, his son Woodman, and a few board members planned the purchase of land and opened the business, and then presented it to the entire London board. Unfamiliar with Buenos Aires, believing that women consumed more than men, and presuming that upper-class women there had the same consumer desires of those in England, the store opened catering to the upper-class female population and focused on readymade dresses. And, to the great surprise of the local manager, women of all classes did not want these dresses because they preferred to purchase cloth and take it to their dressmakers.The dilemma facing Harrods Buenos Aires, detailed in company reports in the archive of Harrods London and in scans of Buenos Aires Harrods archives in the possession of British bookseller Jennifer Wilton-Williams, show that sales reports, rather than studies of the Argentine market like those published by the US Department of Commerce, shaped the new department store's response. Until the 1940s, Harrods Buenos Aires focused on the sale of less expensive articles that came from its dining room, its cosmetics department, and infants’ and children's clothing. Furthermore, employees purchased more than 40 percent of the clothing. Originally imagined as the flagship of the upper-class female shopper, it ended up as a store for the middle class, especially women who bought gifts and enjoyed being seen in the dining room. It closed in 1998.

Cleric or Conman, Curate or Crook? Understanding the Victorian Draper

This article analyses contemporary perceptions of the Victorian draper. While neglected in academic literature, drapers were central to the public imagination, facing criticism for dishonesty in trade and condemnation for taking advantage of the vulnerable female shopper. Placing the focus firmly on the purchase of material goods, rather than shopping as a visual experience, the article argues that, while there was some truth in the negative characterisations, drapers operated in an industry that was rife with fraud and adulteration, made possible by an unregulated market. A strong belief in laissez-faire meant that individual failings were highlighted and condemned, without confronting the failings of the free market itself. The drapers’ own response was to provide an alternative portrayal of themselves, as ministering to women and serving them in an almost religious capacity. They, too, for the most part ranged themselves firmly against regulation, despite the harm that a free market did to their trade and the assaults on their character that resulted. As a consequence, both the public and the draper continued to suffer at the hands of an unregulated market.

The Function of Commercial Streets in Montreal and Paris, 1853-1936

Urban spaces and streets have been studied in a variety of ways in Montreal and Paris, but rarely have historians examined the specific relationship between the function of the street and social usage to reflect changes over time. The argument here is for an analytical approach to photographs combined with textual evidence to reveal the urban processes affecting the retail streets of rue Notre-Dame and rue Sainte-Catherine in Montreal, the through street of Boulevard de Sébastopol, and the pedestrian street of rue Mouffetard in Paris. Photographs reflect the success of modern urban transformations to rework the images of the city from various perspectives and for different purposes. They include the bourgeois female shopper on the late nineteenth-century retail and through streets, female retail and office workers interspersed among men on early twentieth-century rue Sainte-Catherine, and the agency of working-class women in the market transactions and peddler trades of rue Mouffetard.

Why do Females Shop? Dimensions of Females Shopping Experience

Shopping is an enjoyable moment in the life of a female shopper. It has a special meaning and status for females. It is often said that shopping and females are complementary to each other. Females assign a variety of reasons for shopping. With the changing role and status of female in the society, the reasons to shop are also increasing. The present study has tried to find an answer to a very important question, why do females shop? Literature suggests that joy of shopping is the most important motive for a female shopper. A survey of 321 Indian females suggested that the reasons could be described in terms of five dimensions of shopping experience namely special, enjoyment, delight, leisure and recreation. These dimensions collectively describe the sources of joy for Indian female shoppers. The study presents insights for practitioners and researchers.

Rolling in the aisles: a comparative study of male and female grocery shopper typologies

The purpose of this paper is to segment male and female grocery shoppers based on store and product attribute evaluations. A rich profile for each segment is developed. Gender comparisons are operationalised and these developed contemporary shopper typologies are further contrasted against earlier works. Data of 560 grocery shoppers were attained by a survey questionnaire. Factor analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA were employed to develop specific segments of shoppers. Four distinct cohorts of male shoppers and three cohorts of female shoppers emerged from the data of eight constructs, measured by 46 items. One new shopper type, not found in earlier typology literature, emerged from this research. This shopper presented as young, well educated, at the commencement of their career and family life cycle, attracted by a strong value offer and willingness to share the family food shopping responsibilities. This research makes a contribution to segmentation literature and grocery retail practice in several ways. It presents the first retail typology of male supermarket shoppers, employing a cluster analysis technique. Comparisons between male and female grocery-shopping typologies are accordingly facilitated. The research provides insights into the modern family food shopping behaviour of men; a channel in which men are now recognised as equal contributors. Research outcomes encourage supermarket retailers to implement targeted marketing and rationalised operational strategies that deliver on attributes of importance. Finally, this research provides the basis for further cross-cultural, cross-contextual comparative studies.

Crazy for Bargains: Inventing the Irrational Female Shopper in Modernizing English Canada

Between the 1890s and 1930s, anglophone politicians, journalists, novelists, and other commentators living in western, central, and eastern Canada drew upon established connections among greed, luxury, hysteria, and femininity to describe women who went shopping as irrational. Their motivations for doing so included their desires to assuage feelings of guilt about increased abundance; articulate anger caused by spousal conflicts over money; assert the legitimacy of male authority; and assign blame for the decline of small communities’ sustainability, the degradation of labour standards, and the erosion of independent shopkeeping. By calling upon stock stereotypes of femininity, and by repositioning them to fit the current capitalist moment, English-Canadian commentators constructed disempowering representations of women to alleviate their anxieties about what they perceived as the ills of modernization.

Crazy for Bargains: Inventing the Irrational Female Shopper in Modernizing English Canada

Abstract:

Customer service as a function of shopper's attire.

A field experiment explored whether a female shopper's appearance would influence the customer service she received. Specifically, a female confederate dressed in formal work clothes (skirt and blouse) or informal gym clothes (tights and t-shirt) entered a series of randomly selected women's clothing stores in a large mall and proceeded to "shop." The amount of time that passed before an employee approached and acknowledged the confederate served as the dependent variable. As hypothesized, she was acknowledged significantly sooner when formally attired than when informally dressed. Thus, clothing, like other aspects of appearance, influences how people are evaluated and treated by others.

Manly Boys and Enterprising Dreamers: Business Ideology and the Construction of the Boy Consumer, 1910–1930

Early twentieth-century advertising discourses on the archetypal boy consumer promoted a masculinized ideal of consumption that broke decisively from the stereotype of the emotion-driven female shopper. Boys were lauded as rational, informed buyers who prized technological innovation and influenced parents and peers. While touting boys' ample consumer appetites, promoters of the boy consumer also depicted boys' interest in advertised goods as worthy of entrepreneurial-minded self-improvers. The ideal of the boy consumer thus harmonized the potentially hedonistic ethos of consumerism with older ideals of productivity and industriousness. New ideologies of manhood that valorized enthusiasm, loyalty, and salesmanship confirmed the boy consumer's manly vitality.

The mature female clothing shopper: Profiles and shopping behaviour

This study was designed to profile the mature female clothing shopper. More specifically certain variables that could be attributed to differences in consumer behaviour were investigated. Mature female clothing shoppers were segmented as clothing moderates, clothing enthusiasts and the clothing unconcerned. These three cluster groups significantly differed regarding clothing involvement, clothing orientation, activities, interests, opinions, family orientation, needs and media usage. No significant differences were found among the three groups regarding evaluative criteria for clothing and clothing store attributes. Profiles of the clusters were developed, along with applicable marketing implications. Recommendations for further research are made. Opsomming Hierdie studie is onderneem ten einde die vroulike kledingverbruikers van 55 en ouer te tipeer. Die veranderlikes wat 'n bydrae kon lewer ten opsigte van die verskille in verbruikersgedrag is ondersoek. Die verbruikers is gesegmenteer as die kledinggematigdes, kleding- entoesiaste en die kleding-onbetrokkenes. Die drie groeperings verskil beduidend van mekaar ten opsigte van die volgende veranderlikes naamlik: kleding-betrokkenheid, kleding-oriëntasie, aktiwiteite belangstellings, opinies, familie oriëntasie, behoeftes en media gebruik. Geen beduidende verskille kon gevind word tussen die drie groeperings ten opsigte van die veranderlikes evalueringskriteria van klere en winkeleienskappe nie. Profiele van die verskillende trosse is ontwikkel en die bemarkingsimplikasies is uitgewys. Aanbevelings vir verdere navorsing word gedoen.

Bowery B'hoys and Matinee Ladies: The Re-Gendering of Nineteenth-Century American Theater Audiences

IN THE I 820S, THEATER WAS A MALE CLUB. MEN OF ALL CLASSES regularly attended their favorite theaters with their friends. Occasionally, they would bring their wives, daughters, or sweethearts. The men were boisterous and demanding; they drank, smoked, and met prostitutes. By the 1 890s, however, women were the primary theatergoers at what had become the middleand upper-class legitimate theater; men attended, but seldom without female companions. The men sat quietly in darkened theaters and did not interfere with the plays' progress. Earlier studies have documented the behavior of these audiences, particularly of the rowdy audiences.3 But the process of transformation from rowdy to tame and the gendered nature of this process remain unexplored. In the nineteenth century, re-gendering of theater was in the forefront of fundamental cultural shifts, including the increasing importance of bourgeois respectability among the rising middle and upper classes of urban industrial capitalism, the growth of a culture of consumption and the attendant reorganization of the public sphere around the female shopper, and changes in the definitions of middle-class femininity. The changes in theater reveal the link between the two cultural formations,

The psychodynamics of the compulsive female shopper

The psychodynamics of the compulsive female shopper

A Shopping List Experiment of the Impact of Advertising on Brand Images

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of advertising on brand images. One hundred and twenty female cat owners were divided into three equal treatment groups. Each group was given a specified shopping list and asked to describe the personality of the female shopper. Two leading national brands of canned cat food served as the test items. The brands were at relative competitive parity, except in terms of advertising-achieved image association. Analysis of the data suggest that image distinctions are influenced by image-oriented advertising. The results support the view that a major function of advertising is in the area of the consumer's perception of particular brands.

Top-of-Mind Awareness and Share of Families: An Observation

All data presented pertain to 11 advertised brands of same low-priced, high-consumption food product. The data span an eight-year period with nine data points for each brand. Two measurements were taken during first year with about a four-month interval between readings; remaining seven measurements were obtained at approximate yearly intervals. The 11 brands came from three separate markets, and each reported value was based on no fewer than 200 principal female shoppers in a family who used product category. Sampling was of two types: (1) replicated probability samples of blocks with clusters split proportionally between central city and surrounding suburban towns or (2) random samples from metropolitan telephone directory with specification of individual telephone numbers. The share-of-families data were obtained from question: of do you buy? If respondents had difficulty with usually buy, interviewers were instructed to add: the you buy most often. Share of families, for study's food category, is judged to be a reasonable estimate of market share based on an additional analysis. The surveys also included a question on units purchased per week. These data, in recent surveys, have been multiplied by users to develop individual volume shares. The resulting percentages have been close to share-offamily percentages. The reliability of brand bought as an indicator of share of families was also examined. Data from two additional questions were analyzed: What of do you have in house right now? and particular have you purchased most often in past three weeks? Although there are interesting differences, high similarity in percentages exists across three questions. The top-of-mind awareness data were obtained by asking, When you think of (the type of product) what first comes to mind? This was first question asked a respondent, after she was qualified as principal female shopper and a user of pro uct category. The top-of-mind awareness and share-of-families data for 11 brands are shown in figure. All data points are on a percentage basis. The order is based on market performance accumulated over nine data points. For each change in share-of-families between successive data points was determined algebraically by subtracting share of families for each data point from preceding data point. These values were accumulated and 11 brands were rank-ordered by algebraic total as shown in Column 1 of Tables 1 and 2. Thus, Brand A has largest total data point increase in share of families, and Brand K has largest total decrease in data point share changes.