Men – The Saviours of Retailing

Internet shopping is killing the retailer. Time to invite men to town.

Mrs Alexander is a seasoned shopper. She can pound the pavement for days at a time, armed with high heels and a handbag that can swallow possessions like a whale trawling krill. She seems to never tire of fluorescent lights, bopping shop assistants and racks of clothes that look like the carcasses of anorexic animals. Because Mrs Alexander grew up in England, where the weather is gloomier than a room full of economists, her weekend choices were limited to either going to the library and become brainer than a three headed professor, or going shopping.

Mrs Alexander considered the library option, but didn’t fancy the idea of appearing on University Challenge where she would have to wear a hideous scarf and sit next to a young communist, who was ‘reading’ all around braininess at Oxbridge College.

Therefore, she headed to the shops, which amazingly for a country that is wetter than a fish’s armpit, does not include verandahs. It turns out that most other people didn’t head to the library either so retailing in England, and indeed New Zealand, has blossomed into an activity now more popular than sex on a Saturday night. Malls have sprung up like daisies in manure and Saturday mornings have moved from the sports field to café le turf.

Just when it looked as though shoppers were evolving with longer arms, some brainbox (probably one of those University Challenge chaps) invented the internet.
Before you could say ‘porn filter’ people were buying goods on-line and retailers started screaming louder than a two year old. Increasingly, shoppers appear to be staying at home and town is beginning to look like a post nuclear film set. Many take the view that this trend is just progress. However, as us landscape architects will tell you, town is more than just a place for retailers to earn a living. It is also a place to meet friends, hold community events, and people watch. So what to do? Can we save our towns?

I believe we can. There are a number of solutions which are all available for observation if you visit Holland. Now while the Dutch have a reputation for being more frugal than a Scotsman shopping for underpants, they seem happy to spend the rewards of all those tulips on urban design. Proof that if you have a liberal attitude and can keep the water out, you can create vibrant and exciting towns and cities. Ok, marijuana cafès drag in few extra customers but that doesn’t explain all those bicycles.

So one option for us is to go Dutch. However, that may require a cultural shift that us Anglo Saxons are just not ready for (have you ever tried a pickled herring?). Instead, I propose something more simple and potentially radical. Namely; get men to come to town.

Yes, men. By my estimation Mrs Alexander goes to town 983% more frequently than I do. Clearly, if we can get men to shop in town we not not only double the numbers, we increase the spend by a factor of at least 3. This calculation is based on the notion that men statistically hold the pursestrings. (However, in the case of Mrs Alexander she holds the pursestrings tighter than bark on a tree).

To attract men into town, I suggest the following strategy:

Firstly, make 90% of all shop assistants women. This will be very popular with heterosexual male shoppers. The remaining 10% of assistants should be gay. This mix will not only be good for men it will also find favour with women shoppers who, lets be frank, do not want to have to deal with idiot heterosexual male shop assistants.

Having been attracted into the shops, the next trick is to hold them there. The best way to do this is to provide continuous large screen television coverage showing past sporting glories. Put on the 1966 World Cup final or the ‘rumble in the jungle’ and men will happily stand transfixed while their wives and partners slip money unnoticed from their pockets.

Thirdly, provide incentives for chainsaw and gun shops to relocated into the centre of town. Now, while no good ever came from giving a man a chainsaw or a gun, nonetheless men seem to really like buying them. Therefore, use them as an attractor (just leave out the bullets).

Finally, men will happily stay and shop in town if you provide them with food and drink. While plying men with alcohol may seem a tad manipulative, it is nonetheless effective. Therefore, we should perhaps revert to some of the urban design principles of yesteryear, namely; put a pub on every corner. This strategy not only created urban vitality, it also made it easy for women to find their men as they were all in one place – usually in the gutter. Whereas in the old days it was beer only, new age men like a broader range of fare, so I suggest a smattering of pies and chips to bring us into new age cuisine.

So there you have it. There is no need for internet shopping to sound the death nell of our shopping centres. Just get men off the couch and into town with the lure of women, guns and vittals.

Richard Alexander Bain
Self confessed reluctant shopper