apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

For myself, I think that there are not enough brands in each supermarket. There are too many varieties of the same old brands. I do not know if it is the same in the USA but Canadian supermarkets carry their house brands (no name and their upscale name) plus two other brands per product item.

For each product, I only buy my favorite brand. So depending of what is on my shopping list, I will go to the store that I recall carry what I want. This is what I call being overwhelmed! Do not laugh; I am a woman with definite tastes.

The rare time I sent my husband for grocery shopping, I had to write down every detail. Being able to draw a map will make things easier for him.

I feel just the same way that Gourmet Retailer says men feel -- except that it's not confusion as much as it is distaste for all the superfluous choices. As a result, it takes me way too long to shop.

But I recently discovered this trick: I have a (male) friend who hates to shop, and as a result he has it down to a super-efficient science. I've followed him around a couple times, while he explained his strategy along the way. Now I've more or less trained myself to ignore most of the items in the store, and thus can get out in a fraction of the time with all my necessities.
Now it occurs to me: if this is the smart strategy most men adopt, then of course it's going to be a real cost to have to re-learn how to do the equivalent routine in a new store with a different layout.

My boyfriend goes grocery shopping for us a fair amount, but since I'm the one who likes to cook, I often give him a list (I know what I'm planning to cook, and thus the required ingredients). He gets a little rattled when we go to Russo's, a grocery with a weird layout and small aisles and more pushing and chaos but wonderful produce, but I assumed it was his midwestern-ness and not his male-ness.

There's something that feels a little infantilizing about the expectation that men need a map to be able to find the lemons. Maybe it's just me.

Ha! I had to laugh when I read the report's recommendation: "make sure that buildings don't block cell phone signals, so men call home for clarification as much as necessary."
That is SO true. My guy calls me every few minutes from the store when he's buying things for our dinner. - Not to find anything (he knows that store like the back of his hand), but to make sure he's getting something that I'll like. He tells me the options he's considering, what they look like when they're fresh, do I feel like rice or potatoes, or...! Without cell phone reception, that store would lose a lot of sales to him. - Since I inevitably ask for more than he was going to get.

I, on the other hand, couldn't imagine making a call to help me shop - I don't like being sent to parts of the store that I'm not familiar with, and don't like being told what to get.

Doesn't everyone "reply in the affirmative" at the checkout? I mean, have you ever told the cashier that you couldn't find something? 99% of the time they just sit there with a dumbfounded look, as they are not trained on what to do if they receive a non-affirmative response (or they simply don't care, or they are too stunned because no one has ever said "no," etc.). Maybe it's different if you are at a high-end store, but at your average mega-mart, you ask someone BEFORE you get to the checkout. If you didn't get it by then, it's not worth bothering with.

Oh, and I am a guy, and I will almost always go to the store with better products. But I am not an "average" guy in this area, either. That's why I read The Kitchen.

Actually, I have responded in the negative when asked if I found everything I was looking for. But maybe because I said it without expecting to find it then (what are they going to do, stop ringing up my order and hold up the line while they go find what I wanted?!), my answer has always been met with something like an indifferent shrug, an "oh", or a smile that said "oh well!". Never has any cashier done anything but continue seamlessly with ringing up my purchases.

This must be some marketing ploy - they don't want to actually satisfy your needs, and they aren't actually curious to know if you have everything you need. Rather, they want you to think that they are, and market research has probably shown that you have a more favorable impression of a store that asks you that question than one that doesn't.

Confused? Nope, I love walking around a store and finding things. I make myself a list of items I know I need just so I don't forget.

Confused? Bosh!

I work as a cashier at a very customer friendly chain, and at one point we were trained to not ask if they had found what they were looking for, because it creates a delay in the line while we send someone to look for it. There's usually plenty of people on the floor stocking who will drop everything to find out the status of the item in question.

If the customer does ask at the beginning of a long transaction we will send someone to check on the item. If it's close to the register I'll even go get it.

However, customers are so trained to be asked that question that I've gotten several people angry with me for not asking (when they didn't find everything)

Not all stores are like mine though, the bigger chains often send me on wild goose chases when I ask, "I think it might be on aisle 10." :-P

To help my hubby out when I was pregnant, I made a spreadsheet organized by aisle with my favorite products on it. It helps that I work at the store, so I know where everything is, but other people could modify the idea.

I have wondered if the illogical location of some items was a ploy to keep customers wandering around making impulse buys. It takes practice to learn how to shop well in each store. I ask for a rain check when special sale items are sold out. 2 for 1 saves me a lot of money. I also complain if produce is bad and I spent a lot for it, such as cherries, my favorite summer indulgence. Last year my store refunded so much for some bad fruit I was shocked and the policy is double your money back if you aren't happy with it. Earns loyalty, til people abuse it, probably.

My hubby does all our grocery shopping since there is a store directly on his way home (on my home there are two but they are both several blocks out of the way). I'm the type that doesn't like to wander and gets in and out as fast as possible. When he shops he gets what he needs, then wanders up and down each aisle to see what is on sale and stocks up on good bargains that we would use.

I think everything described in the article is more personality related than gender based...

Wow, this was funny. My husband does absolutely all of our grocery shopping. I'm barely allowed in the grocery store, in fact. I'm easily overwhelmed and don't have the patience to sort out which package of noodles (or whatever) we should get in order to maximiza quality and minimize price. I almost think my husband enjoys figuring all of that out.

I'm happy to let him take care of the shopping and cooking and he's happy to let me take care of the dishes and clean up :)

My husband does the grocery shopping most of the time too. I'm more inclined to run in and pick up exactly what we need for dinner on a daily basis but he enjoys a huge weekend shopping excursion. He goes to Trader Joes, Whole Foods and a local produce market. It's nuts!

I'm a male shopper, and it's not the actual shopping that bothers me -- that is the finding what I want, taking it off the shelf, putting into a shopping cart -- testosterone does not make that a challenging activity -- but rather the disorganization at the check out. Coupons, points cards, what to do with the now empty shopping cart, getting the purchases packed, arranging for delivery.... There really needs to be a second person working at every open check out station.