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Change in lifestyle affects how we shop
With various headlines and news reports having come out over the past few days concerning consumer spending habits, many of which have their own, often conflicting views on the state of the global retail economies; it's refreshing to see that the Middle East appears to be weathering the current global economical downturn better than most.
- By Neil Tunbridge, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:37 June 30, 2008
With various headlines and news reports having come out over the past few days concerning consumer spending habits, many of which have their own, often conflicting views on the state of the global retail economies; it's refreshing to see that the Middle East appears to be weathering the current global economical downturn better than most.
Analysts from the US are currently split over whether spending in the US went up or down last month, compared to the same period last year, however my general reaction was a rather apathetic one towards the reporters, who were seemingly trying to make something, out of a rather nothing news story.
Regardless of whether figures were up or down, the fact remains that there almost certainly weren't any major step changes either side of the expected spend habits. The generally accepted thought is that the US is having a pretty tough time and isn't going to improve soon.
Consequently half a percentage point, above or below last year, isn't a dramatic step-change in shopper psychology. Typically we all tend to take a while when it comes to adjusting our belts during lean times and I would imagine the consumers of the US are weighing up their options when it comes to monthly expenditure, prior to the spend cull.
These changes in behaviour bring us nicely to a trend that I have started to see more recently through the Middle Eastern markets, and that is the change in our psychology of shopping, and in particular mall shopping.
The reason behind our adaptive mentality towards mall visits is one that many a developer would wish to truly understand. Yet with ever increasing numbers of malls coming to the market, our choices as consumers are only going to increase.
The issue for the developers is that with choice comes decision making and with decision making also comes the malls' ability to trickle its way into our psyche.
The problem for me however, is that I am not necessarily someone that likes to make snap judgements or decisions without fully thinking them through, such as which mall to go to.
Myself aside, over the past few years and in particular some of the research that we have undertaken in the last 12 months shows trends have begun to indicate some radical movements away from what we had considered to be fairly normal market indicators.
The major change shows that the dominant mall-based grocery trends are on the wane. No longer is everyone going more or less once a week to the mall for large scale grocery items, which now appears to be more of a price related purchase motive.
More importantly however are the recent trends surrounding our decisions in general to go to the mall or to go 'malling' as it is commonly known.
These recent trends are much more related to lifestyle attributes than they ever previously have been. Hence top of the tick list in terms of desires are atmosphere, recreation and the fact that the malls offer us a meeting place and a 'go to' destination.
While the region hasn't witnessed anything as dramatic as that which is currently happening in the US economically, we are undergoing a period of maturity, both from a retail and from a socio-demographic perspective. This change has brought about a definite alteration to our lifestyle demands and as a result the changing decisions and reasons behind why we shop the way we do.
The writer is Head of GRMC Retail Services, Dubai.
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