How Good A Shopper Am I? Conceptualizing Teenage Girls' Perceived Shopping Competence

Academy of Marketing Science Review,  2006  by Palan, Kay M

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Lynnea Mallalieu is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, 601 South College Road, Wilmington NC, 28403, telephone, 910-962-7325, mallalieul@uncw.edu. Kay M. Palan is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Iowa State University, 2200 Gerdin Business Building, Ames, Iowa, 50011-1350, kpalan@iastate.edu. The authors are listed in alphabetical order to reflect equal contribution. This research was supported in part by a grant from the College of Business, Iowa State University. This manuscript was handled in the review process by Ron Hill, the section editor for Interpretive Research.

In order to develop a better understanding of teen shoppers, who represent the most highly sought after market segment in the United States (ICR 2005), it is important to explore teens' own perceptions about shopping, placing specific emphasis on their own perceived competencies as shoppers. By examining how teens define a competent shopper and how they perceive themselves as shoppers within their own normative framework of shopping competence, we should be better able to understand the shopping behaviors they exhibit, the purchase decisions they make, and the limitations they feel they must overcome in order to become fully competent shoppers. In order to examine these issues, the present research begins by discussing the broad concepts of competence from a psychological perspective and consumer expertise from a marketing perspective. We then explore female teens' perceptions of what it means to be a competent shopper and how confident they are in their overall shopping abilities. Finally we link the interpretive data to existing theory and develop a conceptual model of adolescent shopping competence.

We focus specifically on teenage girls because shopping is among the top three leisure activities engaged in by teenage girls in the United States (Roper Youth Report 2003), and teenage girls represent the most highly sought after market segment in the United States (Mediamark Research Inc. 2004). Other sources report that teenage girls love to spend, e.g., ICR, the Philadelphia-based market research organization, reports that teenage girls spend more than boys--an average of $47 per week (ICR 2005). According to Melissa Hermann, Business Leader of ICR's Teen Research Group, "The current generation of teenage girls has tremendous buying power. The evidence is starting to show up in the numbers but we have seen this in qualitative studies for the past few years." Teenage girls buy clothing more often than teenage boys, spending 72% of their income on clothing and clothing-related accessories compared to 52% for boys. In fact, teenage girls outspend teenage boys in every category except videogames (Mediamark Research Inc. 2004). Girls also spend more time in shopping environments than boys with shopping malls their favorite place to shop; they spend, on average, 67.4 hours in a shopping environment in a 30-day period (Mediamark Research Inc. 2004). All of these statistics contribute to the fact that females account for a far greater percentage of compulsive shoppers than males. For example, Roberts (1998) examined compulsive shopping among college students and reported that female undergraduates accounted for 67% of the compulsive shoppers uncovered in his study. While this sample was specific to Texas and thus is not representative of American teens in general, it nonetheless provides some evidence of problematic shopping behaviors among girls.

We also focus on the shopping mall as context, since adolescent shoppers comprise the fastest growing segment of mall patronage and teenage girls spend much of their shopping time at the mall (Sarkisian-Miller 2003). Existing research indicates that there are several factors that affect teenage girls' mall experiences. For example, Baker and Haytko (2000) and Haytko and Baker (2004) indicate that the mall experiences of young girls are influenced by their education cohort (middle school, high school, or college) and their trend consciousness, plus certain characteristics of the mall, such as safety, comfort, accessibility, and retail mix. The various combinations of these factors contributed to the overall mall experience in terms of how positive or negative it was. We also know that there are several factors that contribute to teens' (both boys and girls) willingness to shop at malls including store variety and level of excitement at the mall (Wakefield and Baker 1998). Teens also want to feel welcomed and shop in malls that they consider to be teen friendly (Wilhelm and Mottner 2005).

Clearly, teenage girls love to shop, but how competent do they really feel in an environment where they spend so much time? On the face of it, we might conclude that teens must feel pretty competent and comfortable in an environment that they seem to love, but is that really the case, or is this a generation that feels out of control when it comes to spending wisely and making considered decisions regarding purchases? Are teens particularly vulnerable and easily persuaded? Will their current shopping behaviors create future problems, e.g., poor money-management and decision-making skills as adults, large amounts of debt, and compulsive consumption? For such a lucrative market segment, these are important questions on which to shed some light.