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

Lynnea Mallalieu is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, 601 southerly 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 throw back equal contribution. This research was supported in part by dint of a grant from the society of Business, Iowa State University. This manuscript was handled in the review proces by means of Ron Hill, the section editor for Interpretive Research.

In order to make known a better understanding of teen shopper who show the most highly sought after market part in the United States (ICR 2005) it is important to explore teens' have perceptions about shopping, placing specific emphasis upon their own perceived competencies as shopper through examining how teens define a qualified shopper and how they perceive themselves as shopper within their be in possession of normative framework of shopping capableness we should be better able to understand the shopping behaviors they exhibit, the purchase decisions they make, and the limitations they have feeling they must overcome in order to become to the full competent shoppers. In order to examine these issues, the not absent research begins by discussing the broad general [i]or[/i] abstract notions 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 qualified shopper and how confident they are in their overall shopping abilities. Finally we link the interpretive data to existing theory and unravel a conceptual model of adolescent shopping capableness

We focus specifically upon teenage girls because shopping is among the top three leisure activities engaged in through teenage girls in the United States (Roper Youth Report 2003) and teenage girls exhibit the most highly sought after market section in the United States (Mediamark Research Inc. 2004) Other sources report that teenage girls regard with affection to spend, e.g., ICR, the Philadelphia-based market research organization, reports that teenage girls lay out more than boys--an average of $47 by means of week (ICR 2005). According to Melissa Hermann, Business Leader of ICR's Teen Research clump "The current generation of teenage girls has tremendous buying power. The evidence is starting to present to view up in the numbers on the contrary we have seen this in qualitative studies for the past hardly any years." Teenage girls buy clothing more oftentimes than teenage boys, spending 72% of their income upon clothing and clothing-related accessories compared to 52% for male childs In fact, teenage girls outspend teenage lads in every category except videogames (Mediamark Research Inc. 2004) Girls also lay out more time in shopping environments than striplings with shopping malls their favorite place to shop; they disburse 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 shopper than males. For example, Roberts (1998) examined compulsive shopping among society students and reported that female undergraduates accounted for 67% of the compulsive shopper denudeed in his study. While this sample was specific to Texas and thus is not representative of American teen in general, it nonetheless provides a certain quantity of evidence of problematic shopping behaviors among girls.

We also focus upon the shopping mall as connection since adolescent shoppers comprise the fastest growing part of mall patronage and teenage girls disburse 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 means of their education cohort (middle seminary high school, or college) and their incline consciousness, plus certain characteristics of the mall, similar as safety, comfort, accessibility, and retail mix. The various combinations of these factors contributed to the overall mall experience in bourns of how positive or negative it was. We also know that there are several factors that contribute to teens' (both lads and girls) willingness to store at malls including store variety and horizontal of excitement at the mall (Wakefield and Baker 1998) Teen also want to perceive welcomed and shop in malls that they consider to be teen friendly (Wilhelm and Mottner 2005)

Clearly, teenage girls regard with affection to shop, but how able do they really feel in an environment where they dispose of so much time? On the face of it, we might finish that teens must feel pleasing without being striking competent and comfortable in an environment that they appear to be to love, but is that really the case, or is this a generation that perceive s out of control when it draw nears to spending wisely and making considered decisions regarding purchases? Are teen particularly vulnerable and easily persuaded? Will their common shopping behaviors create future question at issues e.g., poor money-management and decision-making skills as adults, large amounts of liability and compulsive consumption? For similar a lucrative market segment, these are important questions upon which to shed some light.