Women + Shopping = Hell My advice to shop keepers

After going clothes shopping with my wife I thought that I would offer some useful advice to the clothing retailers who trade upon our high streets. I can only vouch for the United Kingdom and ask for our colonial chums to relay the state of affairs in their own backyards to us via the vehicle of this blog.

It seems to me that we men are of secondary importance when it comes to women’s clothes shopping. This is a huge mistake on the part of the retailers because if they did their research properly they would probably find that the vast percentage of their takings at the till comes from the wallets and back pockets of the men who loiter sour faced in their store.

It is my contention that if these stores were made more man friendly then the resultant outlay would be returned a thousand fold across the counter.

Here are my humble suggestions:

1. Whilst it is rather nice, whilst the wife is scouring the rails for that pair of jeans, blouse, t-shirt, skirt and so on in that particular shade of puce that will match the shoes she bought on a whim last week, to watch the other young things going about their shopping business, it would be an even better way to while away those tedious minutes by being able to sit down and rest the aching feet whilst watching the pretty young things.

2. It would be even better if the store also provided us bone weary, tired, bored lecherous men with a cup of coffee, tea or even a beer whilst sitting on a comfy sofa watching the pretty young things draping stuff over themselves and twirling in front of the mirrors.

3. Store owners should also pay attention to the TV schedules, and in particular the sports fixtures so that should, say England be playing the French at Rugby during the 6 nations tournament, then what would be the cost of providing a big screen TV? Minimal and then we men would be happy to spend the whole afternoon in the shop rather than exclaiming ‘its fine – lets go’ every time some flimsy piece of chiffon is waved in front of our eyes.

4. Sort out the changing room situation. Currently whilst hanging about outside the changing room one feels like some sort of pervert because every time a door swings open. One can, if one is lucky, catch a glimpse of bare thigh, beknickered bottom, or lacy bra, but its difficult to stare properly because it just feels wrong. One has to hang around the door looking at ones feet in a shamefaced way as everybody knows your just waiting for the door to open so your partner can ask your opinion (which basically boils down to ‘Does my bum look big in this? – even if it’s a jumper). When the door does open then you can look up expectantly as if it’s the wife, or girlfriend coming out, but of course ones gaze is focused 5 feet behind the person coming out in the hope of a quick thrill.

So my advice is, let’s do it properly lets have a viewing window installed. By the settee, next to the big screen, between the coffee and tea dispensers. Of course it would have to be one of those two way mirrors so we could see in but they couldn’t see us. Well they’d only be a bit embarrassed wouldn’t they? So they could turn, adjust and pirouette to their hearts content. Of course if it was an electric one we could turn it off during the important points in the match, like when Jonny Wilkinson was kicking. But if say Scotland and Italy were playing then most of the attention would be on the mirror.

Its not much to ask is it? The amount of our hard earned cash that travels across the counters probably amounts to the GNP of one of the smaller South American countries. So retailers think about us men. Do it right and we’ll happily spend every Saturday afternoon in your shop whilst the wife/girlfriend/significant other spends every penny on this gods earth on another fluffy jumper and sequin covered thongs (which sound painful to me but hey I’m no fashion victim!)