Retail Failure

Did everyone else know that an entire body of work exists on the study of why/how a certain retail strategy fails, or am I the last person to find this out? To the other uninformed laypeople out there, the study can be best summarized as the “location, location, location” dilemma. You know, answering the question of why no store/restaurant ever succeeds at a certain spot. According to the researchers, location represents only one aspect of why a business fails.

So what does this have to do with hiatus?

Not much, really. Thankfully, no retailer will be affected by my not shopping for clothes/accessories for a year. But if a movement began and more people began to take a look at their shopping habits, then retailers would be affected and would have to question decisions like global expansion and the Starbucks mentality of a coffee shop on each corner to drive out competitors. Since only a handful of people read this blog and fewer listen to me, I can take no responsibility for any such movement, should one ever occur. After all, my journey concerns the emotional aspects of shopping, not the physical.

It’s been reported that people are shopping less due to the global recession, but that’s not entirely accurate. People continue to shop – they still go to the stores and look at things to buy, because their habits bring them to the shopping malls and downtown shopping areas on the weekends or late nights instead of going for a walk or a book club meeting. What they are not doing is buying things.

My hiatus is about both, not shopping and not buying. It’s about examining the reasons for being out there looking at and trying on clothes and things to buy. And in my year off, I didn’t go into stores and look. Not because of the temptation, and I admit, I could be tempted. (When I did pass by stores on my way to do other things, I eyed the window displays; the drool that resulted caused me to stop doing that and people-watch instead.) But I didn't go inside stores mainly because I questioned why I would go into those stores, and what feelings going inside - or window shopping - evoked. The examination has been broader than just the buying.

That examination has made all the difference.