Every time we have gone cool-hunting (gazing at attitudes and dispositions of people in the age group 14-34 years) we have come back with such unsettling new trends that we decided to look at a more conventional area this time.
So we set out to map the shopping experiences, expectations and behaviour of the cool set, presuming we would get some straightforward insights.
We couldn't have been more wrong. These folks operate as though ‘conventionality belongs to yesterday!' to borrow an expression from a song from the cult movie
Shopping for the 14-34-year olds, we discovered, is not a purely functional activity. They do not step out to shop just because they intend to make a purchase. Instead, for them, shopping is a voyage or an expedition. They want to enjoy the multiplicity of options.
Shopping also appears to fulfil the basic human need for human contact and the opportunity to relish the feel-good factor that it presents.
That shopping is viewed as a remedy for urban ills, allowing these people to relax and de-stress, is something all marketers and social scientists have factored in before. But the fact that the cool folks take it as an opportunity to achieve instant nirvana is new. For as many as 43 per cent of our respondents, shopping is a premeditated form of ‘gifting to self'.
“We indeed are drifting towards being an individualistic and self-obsessed society,” says our psychologist on board.
She describes this trend as yet another manifestation of individualism and inertness.
Shalini Thakur, 27, a corporate executive, puts it rather straight when she states: “If I do not get all those thrills while shopping, then I'd better stay at home or office and shop online.”
No wonder the cool folks are free-floating ducks for the smart retailers who have made retailing inspiring and smart. Almost one-fourth of our respondents mentioned shopping to be a compulsive indulgence. They just cannot stay away from shopping. So here we are completely stumped again. Where are those doomsday forecasters who projected that shopping in the real world would shrink and the virtual world of online shopping would simply take over?
Perhaps the categories that have not reinvented their retailing strategies are in danger of losing out to e-commerce and, perhaps, some have already lost substantial ground.
Our cool-hunting, however, makes a strong case for retailing provided retailers factor in the needs that the young (and young-at-heart) express and make shopping chic, endearing and enthralling.
Yes! Provoke folks to get their shopping bags out and simply indulge while we dig deep into cool-hunting to see if there is a gender-specific variation in the trend or no.
We also intend in future to cool-hunt on ticket size for it will be interesting to figure out if shopping for big-ticket items will change anything. Stay tuned!
Giraj Sharma is an independent brand consultant and a compulsive coolhunter.