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Surprising Findings About How People Actually Buy Clothes and Shoes
- amelius 8y agoCan we put a ban on the analysis of consumer behavior? And can we stop measuring the growth/success of the economy by how many redundant items are bought?
- bookbinder 8y ago> And can we stop measuring the growth/success of the economy by how many redundant items are bought? We need people to mindlessly buy stuff they don't want want/need in order to grow our <strike>house of cards</strike> economy.
- alfredallan1 8y agoThe latter is more of a root cause than (also, of) the former, which is nonetheless a large contributor. The latter - measuring growth/success of an economy by redundant items bought, is a direct consequence of applying the same principle for individuals. This phenomenon, at the micro level, could, with the appropriate disclaimers, be considered the root cause for the general maladies you point out. Do you believe individuals could be trained/convinced/taught to not measure their success in those terms? If yes, would they still get to measure their successes? If so, in terms of what? What would you consider a better universal metric for personal success?
- tzahola 8y agoBut we need these measurements to provide more customer value!!!
- nerdponx 8y agoI agree with your sentiment, but studying consumer behavior is interesting for other reasons. Then again, the fact that anyone had to do a study to figure this out is indicative of a bigger disconnect between business people and their customers than I expected.
- icebraining 8y agothe fact that anyone had to do a study to figure this out is indicative of a bigger disconnect between business people and their customers than I expected. I'd caution you against assuming that business people don't know this. This article is just a marketing post for Oliver Wyman (a management consulting firm).
- TheOtherHobbes 8y agoThere's no evidence business people do know it. Most stores seem to redesign their clothing ranges for both women and men annually, and then make a big deal of it. There are a few exceptions, like branded jeans with stable styles, and no-brand generic staples like tees and polos. But generally when you find an article you like, it disappears within a few months. It's astounding that clothing retail has been around for centuries, but hardly anyone has considered that at least some customers might prefer a stable product range.
- icebraining 8y agoI just warned against assuming. That said, what people like is just one of the inputs in the decision, the goal being profit. I'd say the fact that there are exceptions shows that companies do know about it, and they are deliberately choosing to eschew it.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoI'd think from a profitability point of view clothing retailers want to like it just enough to buy it -- and return to the shop -- but not enough that you want to keep wearing it rather than but a new one. One way to do that is to change the fashion regularly in order to apply social pressure to not wearing older clothing. Another way appears to be making clothes very thin so they wear out quicker. Of something is good, but not great, you'll but from that brand again -- and I bet sooner.
- tomrod 8y agoI'd be down with a requirement that consumer behavior is researched in only de-identified settings. Economic frameworks like Berry-Levinsohn-Pakes are sufficient to make most decisions in things like product, placement, and so on. Micro-level data is nice, but macro-level is sufficient for what these customer journey analytics groups are pressing for.
- spronkey 8y agoIs it just me or are the conclusion recommendations in this article all completely reaching? I would hate stores to implement half of the recommendations. Swiping my smartphone on entry?! I'd prefer to shop at the distributor's warehouse.
- AznHisoka 8y agoThis is probably how the typical executive thinks in those retailers. “Hmm.. I need to use big data and personalization to create a better customer experience, I know a genius idea that will do that! Swipe their smartphones!”
- tzahola 8y ago"Those hip-hopster kids will love it"
- Rjevski 8y agoSadly a lot of idiots would love it and completely disregard the privacy implications, until the precedent has been set and you won’t even be allowed into the store without tapping your smartphone and being tracked.
- code_duck 8y agoProbably they will make it like the shopper card programs, where all are free to come and shop in the store, but you suffer disadvantages like paying more unless you check in with your phone.
- organsnyder 8y agoA lot of so-called "idiots" make the rational decision that prioritizes convenience at the expense of privacy. It may not be the decision many of us would make, but that doesn't mean it's not rational.
- 8y ago
- clarkevans 8y agoMyth: Consumers always want something new. Fact: Very often, they are happy to rebuy the same or a similar item. This is something I wish more retailers would get. Once I find a pair of shoes that fits me that I like... I really, really don't want to go though that same discovery process 1-2 years down the line. I just want to buy the very same make/model of shoes I've grown accustom to.
- TigerHimself 8y agoThis is because you are a man. Women act differently.
- tgb 8y agoPlease! I struggle to find shoes that fit me since I find that trying them on in the store has basically no bearing with how they'll perform on the street. Yet the shoes I end up with don't exist in a year or two when I want to replace them.
- stevekemp 8y agoMy solution to this depends on how confident I am that my choice is correct. If I know these shoes are "perfect" I will simply buy two pairs. If I'm unsure I'll go back a week later for a second pair. It doesn't stop me from needing to buy new shoes, but it does postpone the process a little!
- blanderman 8y agoYou could set up an eBay search for the model/size of the pair you want. Any time a new listing matches the search you get an email alert.
- latchkey 8y agoThis article should have postfixed itself with '... in the United States.' I live in Saigon now, there is literally hundreds of thousands of clothing stores here. I can't go 20 meters without seeing something for sale. Why? Because most clothes you buy are actually made here. Which also has the added benefit of making them extremely cheap. I can get a big name brand shirt here for $4 that costs $50 in the states.
- Double_a_92 8y agoWhat would stop you from actually selling those yourself on ebay or so?
- latchkey 8y agoThe Vietnamese govt. loves to tax things coming into and out of the country. Sending enough quantity out of the country to make a profit selling it, would require a lot of shipping contacts. Not impossible, I'm sure people do it, but it isn't easy to do without getting a lot of attention. Also, legality of it all... name brand stuff here is usually some level of fake. For example, the labels, patterns and fabrics may be from the factory (likely removed without knowledge), but they were assembled by the same factory people, working out of a shop in their living room. I bought a nice Pull&Bear t-shirt the other day for 100k vnd / $4.39.
- gowld 8y agoCompanies all over the world are shipping and selling these clothes all over the world, from boutique websites to huge department stores. An individual could try to compete, and might succeed, but this isn't an undiscovered niche.
- pmulv 8y ago>Shopping journeys concluding in online purchases have baskets that are 25% larger, on average. When someone first visits a physical store and then purchases online, the effect is even more pronounced: Baskets are 64% larger. Something that's not addressed in the article, but I have noticed about myself is that I am more likely to order multiple sizes of a piece of clothing online, and return all but the piece that fits the best. That might contribute to larger purchase sizes. Sites like amazon make this particularly easy.
- lkrubner 8y agoI do this a lot with shirts, especially if I'm going to a meeting and want a new white shirt that will look impressive in that meeting. I'll buy three white shirts, try them all, keep the one that fits best, and return the others. When traveling, I've sometimes been put in the position where I'm told suddenly that I should meet with a client at 10 AM tomorrow, and right now it is midnight. The trouble then is finding a clothing store that opens before 10 AM, so I can go shopping before the meeting.
- gowld 8y agoIndeed. Reporting basket size without also reporting return volume is sloppy at best, deceptive at worst.
- ssharp 8y agoI was surprised some of these myths were actually myths! When it comes to online shopping, which makes up a majority of my clothing purchases now, these facts from the article are very important: 1. Spend is dramatically higher at brand stores and websites than in multibrand stores. 2. Very often, they are happy to rebuy the same or a similar item. 3. Most journeys are still overwhelmingly single-channel, though this is changing. For me, finding clothes that fit right can be difficult. I'm tall enough that many shirts are too short but many tall sizes are too long. Most brick-and-mortar stores don't stock tall sizes, so I had to go online to even try them. Since it's enough of a pain, I've settled on two or three brands whose sizing I know can work for me. If I were to shop somewhere like Macys or Macys.com, I'm dealing with several dozen brands, each with different sizing. If I stick with a brand, say Banana Republic or Gap, it's substantially easier and I'd tend to spend more money at one place rather than buying pieces here and there. On the other hand, I do not like online returns at all, so I try and stick with brands that have a physical presence I can utilize for returns. Additionally, many stores offer really great discounts that can be hard to parse and take advantage of in stores. They may have a %-off coupon valid for certain things, in combination with BOGO discounts that you can stack for big savings. Toying with that in an online shopping cart is really easy but is much more of a hassle in a store.
- josefresco 8y agoIn a store, however, a sales associate tries to guess a shopper’s tastes in real time. Shout out to the people who can afford to shop at stores with a business model that supports "sales associates" that actually do something besides take your money (or help unlock a dressing room) I can't remember the last time I was helped personally while shopping for clothing.
- alexgmcm 8y agoI don't shop at expensive stores but sometimes I get asked if I want help by an employee if they are standing around. I always say no though - it feels awkward.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoMy knee-jerk reaction is always to reject shop-assistant help, but recently I've had a couple of experience where the assistant instead offered advice about what I was looking at ("there are more of that style on such-and-such aisle", "this model has 2 hdmi inputs, if you need more I can recommend something", that kind of thing) which has made the assistant seem much more approachable and given them an air of knowledgeability that makes me feel they actually can help too.
- exergy 8y agoTrouble is there are many people, me included, who would never just walk into a store and buy something. If I'm about to buy something (and there are no limits to how trivial that thing may be), chances are I've done some research online. Often it seems I know more of what to look out for than the sales associate, making the help moot.
- alexvoda 8y agoI wonder if this "coldness" towards the customer is an artifact of environment? Here in Romania, I feel it is only half of the time the case.I had plenty of helpful interaction with employees both being asked if I need help or directly going and asking for help. I also had plenty of unhelpful interaction with uninformed employees or uninterested employees. At least in the westernized countries I believe the more Mediterranean a culture the more helpful store employees try to appear (even though they may not actually be).
- iClaudiusX 8y agoThe two most frustrating parts about online shopping are 1) the Byzantine pricing model, and 2) the inability to keep anything in stock. I don't need the silly vanity of thinking I got some amazing "deal" at 40% off when your prices are clearly just inflated by 40+% across the board to start with. It's a tremendous waste of my time to have to figure out which items qualify for which promotions, only to be disappointed at checkout by some technicality. Even worse is finally picking a few hundred dollars worth of clothing to buy only to find out none of the normal sizes are in stock. I cannot believe how many retailers are still failing the absolute basics like inventory, yet insist on investing billions in tracking everything we do, everywhere we go to hijack our privacy and attention with ads.
- dmichulke 8y ago> However, while omnichannel is growing in importance, our study suggests that 83% of shopping journeys still happen within a single channel — overwhelmingly in traditional stores, which account for almost 80% of apparel purchases today. The problem with this is marketing. Today, there is no effective way of targeted marketing for those 80%. That's a shame and there are tools to solve it, one is coalition loyalty programs. It's like a store loyalty program but for a coalition of stores. An important European brand for such a program is payback. I'm working on improving such a programs (and there aren't many, and this in spite of 80% store purchases) by making it location and customer-aware and suitable for even small businesses to enter the coalition. Currently it's a working server back end and I need another 2-4 months to come up with a good demo. I'm looking for potential clients and/or strategic investors to make it a real product if anyone is interested. email in profile.
- bhouston 8y agoMy wife is probably single-highhandedly causing retailers that she favors to fail. I feel for them. She orders a ton of clothes online and then returns something around 75% of it. They give her free shipping and they take the returns in store at no cost. She prefers to order when there are sales. What she is doing is completely logical and encouraged by their policies but I do not understand how they make any money?
- danepowell 8y agoClothing, especially designer or specialty / technical clothing, can be marked up 1-10x. In other words, a jacket that costs $10 to produce might sell for $20 or $100. Don't worry, they are still making money on your wife. (This is just based on my experience working for a major outdoor clothing retailer, not any sort of real data)
- jschwartzi 8y agoThat's the online equivalent of what I do in store. Every brand has slightly different sizing so I often have to try on edgy brand of short until I find one or two that have sleeves and shoulders that fit. Many brands also use different collar styles. Then I look at different patterns and colors. The end result is that I might try on 5 or 6 things and walk out with one or none.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoMaybe the shipping costs plus the costs to manufacture the clothes she buys are less than what she pays for the clothes she keeps. Or maybe she's an outlier. Someone returning 75% of the clothing they buy because of a generous return policy is better than nobody buying anything from that retailer at all.
- rb808 8y agoYeah I know people like that too. I think the stores prefer those customers to those who never return but rarely shop. https://www.fastcompany.com/1614648/zappos-best-customers-are-also-ones-who-return-most-orders https://www.fastcompany.com/1614648/zappos-best-customers-ar...
- 8y ago
- bpyne 8y agoIt's interesting just how much I've come to fit the facts stated in the article. Previous to online shopping, I'd wear clothes until they were threadbare to avoid going to a retail store, often having clothes for 10+ years. Recently, I found that I like LL Bean for the style, quality, and sizing for both business and casual. So I'm slowly revamping my wardrobe and intend to replace pieces more often. Shoes, however, I am still going in-person to find. I have a pair of podiatrist-made inserts to deal with my collapsing arches. It's devilishly tough trying to account for them when purchasing online.
- mrep 8y agoSomewhat related, my mom the consultant loves to talk about a study on how men vs women shop. When shopping, women tend to go to many different stores comparing items and prices at each one and then at the end, they go back to the one they liked best and buy it. Men on the other hand already know exactly what they want and so they go straight to the store that has what they want, buy it, and leave. It is especially fun when you tell that to a group of guys and girls. My dad, brothers and I were so for the 'get in and get out' strategy but the girls were all talking about how it is fun to look at all the different options and look for good deals.
- byproxy 8y agoConsider me (man) an outlier, then. I much prefer to comparison shop and maximize the quality/value ratio. Plus, I do tend to know what I want (in terms of style, at least), but it might take many visits to many shops to find it (both virtually and physically).
- watwut 8y agoWomen clothing has more variety - typically I don't find what I want in place where I found that last time (and often I don't find it, period). Most of time I am doing a sort of trade off. I would go to store that sells exactly what I want predictably, if it would exist. Can confirm that I spend more time trying to get better deal then men I know who buy first regardless of price.
- Pica_soO 8y agoI found military boots to be literally ever lasting. The problem is that alot of different political associations are connected to those boots. You are obviously a facist or punk for wearing uncapitalistic everlasting boots.
- gowld 8y agoWear what you like. "I mean, really, how often do you look at a man's shoes?" --Shawshank Redemption.
- GuyPostington 8y agoI've got a pair of 36x36 Duluth Trading flex firehose work pants that have finally worn out after 2.5 years. They were worn almost every day.