Monday 19 May 2008

It's not (just) for girls

The lovely Tricia of bitsandbobbins (and of course founder of wardrobe_remix) sent us an interesting article featured in the Independent which discusses the rise of men choosing to shop online. A survey by management consultants Accenture suggests that most men (56 per cent) today prefer shopping online to the high street, and now premium fashion sites are responding. Men are coming round to the idea that there are more uses to the Internet than watching porn and Family Guy (these are still fundamental uses though).



Are male shoppers in stores like Selfridges an endangered species?


This quote from Alastair Rae, founder of online store albamclothing sums up the reasons why succinctly so I'm just going to use it and expand on it (I've added the italics): "a significant number of men are inherently lazy when it comes to shopping for clothes. They (the lazy ones) annoyingly won't devote what little free time they have to shopping (like you can be too busy to shop!), as women may do, so being able to pick something online at 5pm and get it by lunchtime next day has an obvious appeal. And when men find something they really like, they tend to buy it over and over, so the Internet is the perfect way to do so. You know your size, you see the colour, job done." I personally loved a certain type shopping but I've always known that I was in the minority of men. Most men have a strong idea of what they want (a better word is probably need), they go into a shop that they know and feel vaguely comfortable in, pick the right size and take it to the cashier. No messing around.


The man described above is not me though. I however love strolling around Carnaby Street (Kingly Court, 22, Hurwendeki, Concrete to name a few highlights ), venturing inside Liberty and perusing rack after rack of slightly extravagant and expensiveness niceness. I feel so at home inside shops like these. The side of shopping which means consumerism inside the likes of Topman and H&M is less appealing to me. In these environments I revert back to my inner typical man, a blink and you'll miss it hunter gatherer, within seconds (depending on the size of the queue) I'm walking out with what I wanted. I don't feel anywhere near as comfortable in these blindingly bright, busy and rack muddled High Street stores. This is where the Internet goes in. I know my sizes in these places, I have a good idea of what I like and what suits me and this is where that wonderful thing the world wide web comes in. I don't need to hurt my eyes anymore, nor do I have to tidy up the racks...I can get what I want online!

Despite what the statistics suggest I know that there are men out there who love to shop in stores like this!

Of course there is the other side to Internet shopping, the designer side as well as the High Street and this side is certainly growing and becoming more and more popular. I however prefer to shop for these types of items in person, I enjoy the shopping experience that you can only really get (at the moment anyway) inside the physical store itself. That said, of course I window shop and keep and eye on a bargain on a number of sites...Luisaviaroma, Oki Ni, Matches, Browns, bstore and Oi Polloi, to name just a few of the myriad of online shopping opportunities.

How about you lot- are you shunning the High Street and shopping online instead?

9 comments:

Matthew Spade said...

well id say i do about 40% of my shopping online, but thats mostly because im not near enough the shops to just pop in and look around. id say i 100% prefer shopping on the highstreet, its so much more fun and in the past few years its been getting better and better ( for me).

Topman is good to shop online though as you can take advantage of the free p+p wehn you spend over £90, then send the items you don't want back for free! They're good for their online sales too.

Its just so frustrating that i live so far away from London!!

j said...

Well yes, I do about 60% of my shopping on line. But I wouldn't call it lazy. I would call it efficient. I do like to go to thrift stores though and if I am laying out real money for an item I want to see it and try it on in person.

Style Salvage Steve said...

The online world definitely makes it easier for us all but even more so for those who live outside of well stocked cities. I am spoilt for choice in London, so unless I want to pick up a bargain I shop in store. I guess I'm old fashioned.

Kira Aderne said...

so amazing!

exchange links?
you are at mine! if you wanna tell me ;)

see you,
Kira

Thomas said...

As a fellow man who likes to shop I too think it unlikely that I'll abandon the brick and mortar practice any time soon. But for things I buy often, and for which I know my size, online is the way to go.

As well, there are items that I can only buy online.

Anonymous said...

Like you Steve, I like to get my stuff from actual shops; I can't be bothered trawling through thousands of pages at work on the offchance something might appear, then haviong it sent only to discover the fit's rubbish, or the colour's not quite as it looked. Shopping is a pleasure, especially in nicer stores. And as i end up in Oxford Street less, it means that I end up buying fewer, but better items, that I rarely see other people wearing. I really think you have to try before you buy. Though I have yet to take the plunge in onlien sales - Men a la Mode's is supposed to be brilliant. All hail Liberty!

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I just want to join the discussion. for most men that I know, they find online shopping very convenient since when they shop on traditional stores they just pick out clothes and leave in a span of 5 minutes.

Camholder said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Camholder said...

If I could order tea online and get it delivered to me bed at 6:30 every morning I would, however my one exception is clothes.

Firstly, everyone seems to have a slightly different definition of what in inch is and I just never get round to returning things if they don't fit.

Then there is the cut, and they never give you enough information about this on the site other than the picture of the item on the model. Now lets face it, if I looked like the model i could go outside in grandpa's suits and still look amazing.

Finally the fabric, if you are buying a bog standard cotton t-shirt ths is not usually a problem. Anything out of the ordinary though means I need to feel the fabric, find out what it is, how thick it is etc...

Online clothes shopping, while showing promise, is just not there yet.

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