The changing face of female consumerism

Or, why us girls have a different shopping experience these days to the ones our mothers had. By Carol Muskoron

Nowadays women are in charge of money - and they're online

How different is the experience of women shopping today to the experience of women shopping 10, 20 or 30 years ago? It's fair to say that shopping for the woman of the twenty first century is radically different to the way it used to be for so very many reasons.

 

Perhaps the biggest change of all is the fact that big businesses now see women as shoppers. Yes, market teams all over the world now target us as an audience. No longer are women sitting at home trying to make the housekeeping their husbands give them stretch as far as possible. We are out there buying lipstick, cars, all manner of white goods and more. So we're  earning and we count financially, which is big news.

 

Add to that the fact that we are online at lunchtimes and on our kitchen laptops and you have a powerful new consumer.

 

‘We have a strange mix now of shopping online and shopping at the farmers' market,' says Louise Chunn, editor or Good Housekeeping. ‘I use Ocado online but on a Sunday I go with my basket and my recycled sack from John Lewis (and my child). I'm .like a pre-technology lady bountiful! I have a long debate over which pears to buy and take my purchases back to my already three quarters full fridge.

 

‘Shopping is so different for me compared to, say, how it was for my mum. It's been made a far more pleasant experience. The shops are really aiming to please you. There's so much choice and variety. There's music. The shops are warm in winter, cool in summer. Very few shops these days make you feel like you don't belong. There's less of that exclusive behaviour. I sometimes used to feel silly in a department store, but these days we're less intimidated and more attuned to asking for what we want.' So has shopping now cut across the classes? ‘I think it has. Everyone thinks they should have good service.'

 

Judith Gubbay, Consumer Director of Good Housekeeping, who has been in consumer journalism for nearly 30 years has noticed this difference too. ‘Until the mid 80s only economists talked about consumers. Up until then, people weren't consumers, they were shoppers and they were mostly women. Consumer affairs weren't really seen by newspapers and TV as interesting.' But is it all good? Is everything better now? It seems not. ‘We have so much more information, and so much of it's confusing and leaves you having to make difficult choices. Which is perhaps why the Good Housekeeping Institute free product test reports are more important than ever.'

 

But on top of all the changes in finances, information and technology, there's been another vital change in consumerism - our consciences. Is what we are buying fair, green enough, organic, kind? We buy eggs and suddenly we are forced to think about how the chickens who laid them lived. We buy a T-shirt and we wonder if child labour was involved. We invest in a bank and wonder how green its policies are.

And now for a potentially sexist remark - would compassion be such a huge force in the consumer market if women weren't top cosumers? We will never know.

 

Finally, perhaps the best and most surprising change in consumerism for women is that shopping is now seen as a leisure activity. ‘Yes, it's fun!,' says Bernadette Fallon, editor of allaboutyou.com. ‘We look forward to doing, we love doing it and it gives us a sense of achievement once we've done it. Is shopping the new sex? Probably not, but it does seem to be something we need and love!'

 

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