Tempting Male Shoppers with Booze

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article called Belly Up to the Bar And Buy Some Jeans, profiling a trend to serve beer and hard liquor in men’s clothing stores.

Emphasis mine:

By offering in-store drinks, a growing number of retailers are trying to get men to shop more like women, who often linger and browse, buy items on impulse, and return time and again to a favorite store. The recession is driving stores to search for anything that gives them even a small edge over rivals. And generally slower traffic gives sales staff more time to offer drinks and talk with shoppers.

Beware all men who enter here! Drink to avoid being thought of as a sissy, metrosexual, woman wannabe! Ugh. “Get men to shop more like women?” I think that there is a gross generalization here about women shopping on impulse and doing more browsing then men. I’ve seen my husband do the same thing at Home Depot, wandering aimlessly up and down aisles just to see if there was something that caught his eye. I think we both browse, but we have different interests. And certainly there are straight men who are interested in wearing nice clothes and they try things on while browsing in a store.

Retailers say they use discretion when deciding to whom they offer drinks and avoid offering liquor to minors. In many states, stores don’t need a liquor license because they are serving drinks free, not selling them. New Jersey and Georgia are among the states which do require a license, even for drinks offered free.

They aren’t carding guys in the stores but merely offering the use of “discretion.” Um…right. It’s a full proof plan! (See what I did there…Fool Proof vs. Full Proof – Tee Hee!)

“Men are more purpose-driven as opposed to window shoppers, so the addition of lounges and/or bars provides a club setting that can give sales associates a natural entrée to engage with this guy,” says Tom Julian, president of New York-based brand consultancy Tom Julian Group.

Excuse me?! Fuck off Tom Julian, president of a company you named after yourself with one employee who happens to be yourself. You think because I look in a store window that I have no purpose? And why the fuck do you think giving a customer a “club setting” translates into more sales?

There are several Prima Facie reasons but for the moment just consider that if you give your customer a relaxed environment where they feel comfortable spending some time browsing, and then you give them something for free that further relaxes them like, oh, I don’t know, maybe some alcohol, then maybe a customer will feel like they want or even feel obligated to give you their money. You see, Wall Street Journal, customer manipulation like offering a free gift with purchase, beer/champagne, and groovy music works with women too because we happen to be human beings.

This article about stores finding ways to bring in the boy dollars is full of oozing contempt for women while discussing ways to entice men to “shop more like women” while browsing and trying things on. Blech. This article had real potential to focus on ways that retailers are being creative and competitive to bring in customers but instead the reporter just relied on the same old boring “men shop smart” and “women shop on impulse” bullshit stereotypes.

As for me personally, I hate shopping in a brick and mortar store. This is the reason why I prefer to shop online, have clothes sent to my house, try them on at home and then return whatever I don’t like. I’d rather pay for shipping than have to schlep to a mall, fight traffic, etc. Browsing through aisles and store after store is tedious for me and I much prefer browsing online.

Please tell me what you think about this. Am I overreacting?