••• shopper insights
Dress up and spend up?
Sharp-dressed shoppers put more items in their carts and spend more money than their casually dressed counterparts, according to research from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. How much more? In one research experiment, shoppers in dressier clothing, such as a dress or blazer, bought nearly 18 percent more items than shoppers in casual outfits, such as t-shirts and flip-flops.
Well-dressed shoppers also spent about 6 percent more money than casually dressed shoppers, according to “The aesthetics we wear: how attire influences what we buy,” a paper co-authored by Fuqua marketing professor Keisha Cutright and published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
This is because when you look sharp, you have more social confidence, and this reduces anxiety people have about making decisions, Cutright says. “We focus on how your dress affects your own perceptions. When you’re dressed formally, you believe that other people are looking at you more favorably and they believe you are more competent. If you feel confident, you can buy whatever you want without worrying what other people think or whether they will be judging you negatively,” she says.
The researchers also ran a study to test whether retailers can influence how people dress when coming to their stores and found ads with more formally dressed models prompted would-be customers to choose nicer outfits to go shopping in. “We saw that retailers could influence what people wore, and then, depending on what people wore, that affected the store’s sales,” Cutright says. “So there are some practical implications from this research for retailers.”
••• financial services
COVID cranks up Canadians’ credit curiosity
COVID-19 has caused many Canadians to check their credit reports and scores more frequently according to a November 2020 survey conducted by Equifax Canada. Within the last 12 months, 71 percent of survey respondents have checked their credit report, including 57 percent in the last month. Younger adults (under age 55) and Quebecers were far more likely to have checked their credit reports on a regular basis. This is a significant shift for consumers when considering 67 percent of survey respondents rarely or never checked their credit reports, according to a similar survey conducted by Equifax in 2016.
In addition to checking their credit reports, survey respondents indicated they are obtaining their credit scores more frequently. More than half (54 percent) said they obtain their score at least annually, as compared to 48 percent a year ago. Younger adults (those aged 18-34) are significantly more likely to check their credit scores monthly versus those over the age of 35 (37 percent in 2020 vs. 27 percent in 2019).