New Breed of Shoppers: An Agressive, Stop-At-Nothing Phenomenon

With the advent of top name designers peddling their wares in limited editions at stores like H&M or The Gap, a new brand of customer has emerged: the one who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

This week, it was reported that Linzi Stoppard, daughter-in-law of playwright Tom, decided she HAD to have a $400 gold beaded Roberto Cavalli dress from H&M. So what did she do? She resorted to thievery. To the appall of her sister shopper, she snatched the Cavalli dress right out from under the dressing room next door.

I imagine the neighbor was too shocked to do much about it leaving Lindzi with her prize, rewarded for her catty behavior.

According to Joan Harvey, a psychologist at Newcastle University who has done research into shopping behavior, women get swept into a pack mentality, similar to men at a football match, where they are competing to buy limited-edition items.

“The goal isn’t the dress itself, but to save money. As part of a group, each individual experiences a lowering of feelings of guilt and inhibition, so women will push and jostle to get to the front and may well do things that would ordinarily be out of character,” she says.

“You typically see it at the New Year sales, when I have noticed a lot of aggressive pushing to scrabble for bargains, but it does appear to be becoming a more widespread phenomenon.”

Some less aggressive and more common ploys include hiding items on racks they don’t belong on, removing parts of the garments such as belts or ties so they look incomplete, and hiding garments inside other garments so shoppers can’t find them. Women are even nasty enough to tell other shoppers, “That looks just awful on you,” or to follow women to the dressing rooms to steal their “over-the-limit” clothes from the racks.

These women line up before the stores open, they try to place things on hold, they cozy up to the shopgirls, and they stake out the stores before the sales.

Yes, they’re a new breed. Sort of like a penicillin resistant virus. Will doctors find the cure to the underhanded shopping aggressions of these pack-driven women?

Well maybe that’s not necessary. Maybe the fashion industry needs to play fair and let everybody – and I mean the people in Minnesota, Kentucky, Georgia and the rest – have the opportunity to buy that $400 Cavalli dress. Because releasing it in limited edition in the fashion capitals of the world, well maybe that’s not fair.