CHAPTER 1 - University of Exeter

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Chapter 3 – The Shopping Experience
CHAPTER 3
THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE - ARE MEN AND WOMEN REALLY THAT
DIFFERENT?
As mentioned in Chapter 1 the focus of consumer research seems to have
changed quite drastically over the past decade from the very strong assertion that
men and women differ greatly in their shopping behaviours to the equally strong
suggestion that men can enjoy and use shopping in very similar (if not the same)
ways as women (Holt & Thompson, 2004). Before this change many consumer
researchers had made the assumption that only women engage actively in shopping
behaviours at the same time as enjoying these activities (Campbell, 1997; Lunt &
Livingstone, 1992; Miller, 1998 amongst others). Now the focus seems to have
changed to most consumer behaviour researchers advocating more research into
men’s shopping behaviours. Otnes and McGrath (2001) for example stated that it
would be foolish to ignore men’s shopping behaviours any longer.
This thesis mainly focuses on shopping as a recreational activity, as opposed
to the economic definition of a mere exchange of money for goods. Despite the
growing body of research indicating that men’s and women’s engagement with
shopping is similar, there still seems to be a quite strong public opinion that shopping
is predominantly a female activity and consequently that men do not engage in this
activity much (see Chapter 6 for a more detailed discussion on this).
As outlined in the introductory chapter, research conducted in the fields of
consumer behaviour and psychology has had very similar approaches and results
over several past decades. In general, findings have indicated that women are the
predominant shoppers while men are less likely to engage in this activity (Stone,
1954; Campbell, 1996; Lunt and Livingstone, 1992; Reid & Brown, 1996). However,