CHAPTER 1 - University of Exeter

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Chapter 1 - Introduction
He concluded that they see shopping as a way to care for and provide for their loved
ones.
From the year 2000 onwards there appears to be a change in focus again in
the consumer research literature with researchers starting to question whether in fact
women are the only ones actively engaging in shopping behaviour. Many consumer
researchers (see above) now argue that men are just as involved in the shopping
process as women are, and more specifically that men’s shopping behaviours should
not be ignored (Otnes & McGrath, 2001; Bakewell & Mitchell, 2004; Holt &
Thompson, 2004). Otnes and McGrath (2001) were among the first researchers to
explore the male shopping experience in more detail and identified three common
stereotypes of men’s shopping behaviour, which they found to be mostly untrue.
These stereotypes are: “grab and go,” “whine and wait,” and “fear of the feminine.”
The ‘grab and go shopper’ is one who does not want to waste a lot of time in the
process of shopping. This shopper knows what he wants, and therefore does not need
to spend much time looking around and as a result he goes to the store buys what he
wants and leaves. The ‘whine and wait shopper’ is the disinterested shopper who
endures (but does not enjoy) the process, while someone else does the shopping
(most likely the partner). ‘Fear of the feminine’ refers to a dislike by men of doing
anything that could be considered as a female activity. The realities of these
stereotypes looked somewhat different according to Otnes and McGrath (2001). The
only example of male ‘grab and go’ shopping behaviour in this study was in the
context of buying a Valentine’s Day gifts. Similarly, they did not observe any
instances of men acting in line with the ‘whine and wait’ shopper stereotype.
However, they did find that women tended to interpret their male partner’s behaviour
as such. Finally, their data also strongly contested this last stereotype of male