WOMEN AND SHOPPING DAZE

Evening Star, Issue 22445, 16 September 1936, Page 5

WOMEN AND SHOPPING DAZE

Alany modern women suffer from a new disease called “ Shopping Daze,” says a writer in the ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ This is the quasi-scientific name for that urge in the woman shopper to spend hours wandering round the stores or buying things she does not need at the moment. Scientists of the shop counter have discovered this from long observation of the woman shopper. They have also come across many other interesting facts. Bus conductors, for instance, used to wonder why, in a half-full bus, all the passengers sat on the near side. They found it was the lure of the shop window. It is display which first attracts the woman shopper. But when she enters the shop this, according to two experts I interviewed, is what she does. First she tends to turn to the right. It has taken all the ingenuity of the display artist to break her of tins habit. Then she takes a circular course, if the showroom architect allows it. One of the shop designer’s greatest problems is to keep the flow of shopl>ers even and to prevent them from congregating in one spot. The woman shopper likes a crowd. She expects the shop to be brightly and elaborately decorated, and goes first to the most colourful counter. She wishes to be left alone to roam

among the counters, and insists on handling the articles which interest her. Her domestic instinct _ for neatness makes her shy of disturbing a meticulously arranged display. A woman is much more likely to select a pair of stockings from an artistically-disordered counter than from a too-tidy case. Usually women prefer to be served by women assistants. These are expert mind readers, and can place their customers almost at a glance into one of the following categories : Those who like to hesitate over their purchases. Those who prefer to he swayed by “ sales talk.” ' Those who will not buy unless they are advised not to. “The last class, though few in number, make an interesting study,” I was told by the manager of one large store. “ They are so forceful that they will Inly against the saleswoman’s advice just to show how strong-willed they are.” Women prefer a shop where they can sit down, write a postcard, telephone, have tea. Some- of them treat certain large stores as a club, where they meet their friends and chat. This is all to the good, for once they are inside the selling expert and “ shopping daze ” do the rest.