TakeAway: Shopping therapy is not a new concept but asserting that it will carry the consumer economy through this recession is quite brazen.
To what degree does our emotional connection with or satisfaction from a product overrule our rationale behavior, especially during a recession?
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Excerpted from WSJ, “The Bonhomie of Buying,” By Laura Vanderkam, November 1, 2009
As the economy tanked last year, pundits claimed that we were entering a new age of frugality. We would stop shopping and learn to “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” …
There was just one problem with this prediction: Given how much money is riding on the consumer economy, legions of people now spend their lives figuring out how to make the buying experience more alluring … “We probably know as much about the behavior of the human shopper in its natural habitat, the mall, the grocery, or the department store, as we do about the activities of any species of animal in the wild.”
Now former Esquire editor Lee Eisenberg adds his own take, examining why modern Americans find shopping so irresistible … “Shoptimism” aims to offer a novel view on the big idea of buying and selling … Eisenberg approaches consumer culture as an anthropologist … He turns up some interesting tidbits.
Black Friday shoppers … say that they’re battling the crowds on behalf of themselves rather than shopping for loved ones …
The brains of tight-fisted folks react to high prices in the same way they do to physical pain.
We absorb advertising messages so well that—in a world saturated with PC Guy vs. Mac Dude ads—we actually perform better on creativity tests after being cued by references to Apple products …
Brands are losing their vice grip as shoppers figure out that generic items are often made in the same factories as branded ones and retailers manage to turn their private labels into desirable goods …
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The overarching argument inherent in this book: Shopping, in modern America, is fundamentally an optimistic activity.
While our shopping habits are easily manipulated, they are not quite as irrational as critics like to believe. For most of us shopping … really does make us feel better.
We buy because it “confers instant membership in a community.” We buy “to express ourselves.” Most important, we buy because “buying is fun, sociable, and diverting …”
If a sweater or an iPod can do that, … then no wonder, recession or not, it’s hard to keep Americans out of the stores.
Edit by TJS
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Full Article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703399204574505382492105704.html
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profkenhoma 