Bargain-hunting women get thrill of victory like sports players
Experts may have finally found the reason why people queue up for hours on end and race down aisles grabbing the best deals on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas and Boxing Day sales. According to professors at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and Queensland University of Technology (QUT), shopping is an activity akin to athletic competition for some. New research published in the Journal of Retail and Consumer Services has revealed the meaning of being a “sport shopper.”
Kathleen O’Donnell, associate dean of the School of Business at SFSU and lead author on the study has said that a sport shopper “is somebody who takes great pride in their ability to get the thing they want at a discount,” in an SFSU press release. “It’s not about spending the least, it’s about saving the most.”
According to the authors, in spite of being able to afford the items at full price, a sport shopper is someone who hunts a bargain for the thrill of it. She takes great pleasure in outsmarting the retail system in sport shopping and is highly competitive. Although O’Donnell is certain that sport shoppers are also male, research so far has only shown females.
The team of researchers including Judi Strebel, chair of the department of marketing at SFSU School of Business, and Gary Mortimer, senior lecturer at QUT School of Business, have pointed out various similarities between sport shoppers and athletes.
Akin to victorious athletes who recount their achievements, sport shoppers can remember stories behind their bargain purchases with great specificity – sometimes as far as the date of purchase, the ordinary retail price of the item and the discount price at which the item was bought.
Another similarity noted by the researchers was the strategy built around each shopping endeavour. Whereas a runner may map the race route and build up to the race distance, a sport shopper will familiarise herself with the departmental store’s layout, observe patterns of merchandising and plan a shopping trip based on time availability.
O’Donnell has contended the difference between bargain shoppers and sport shoppers; whereas the former hunts deals out of necessity, the latter does it for the “rush” of finding.
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