A Trip to Macy's!

For my excursion project I decided to do the shopping excursion. I chose the shopping excursion because I was interested in seeing what kind of information I would find related to men and women price differences in clothes. Personally myself, I enjoy shopping yet I‘ve never really paid attention to whether there are differences between men and women clothes price, so this was a great opportunity to learn about this topic. I decided to conduct my observations in the Macy’s located in Flushing Queens. Macy's is a huge department store that offers a great variety of men and women items of all age and size, so it was the perfect store.

Immediately when I walked through the door I was impressed to see the large number of sections catered to women. I mean I have been to this Macy’s several times before, but never really took the time to pay attention to the way it was set up. On the right side of the store there was a huge selection of women’s jewelry watches, necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, etc. Next came women’s cosmetic and skin care products such as anti-aging creams, cleansers, toners, moisturizers, make up, etc. the sections ranged from M.A.C, Sephora, Estee Lauder, Clinique, Dior, Chanel etc. Then came the women’s fragrance followed by a Sun Hut Glasses for women and a section for women’s hand bags. The first level of Macy’s was nearly entirely catered to women’s items. During my time observing this first level I noticed that there was mainly females in this part of the store. I also noticed that the sales associates were females as well, I don’t remember seeing any males in this part of the store.

 As I went down the stairs and further to the back I found the men’s section. It was much calmer and less hectic then the front of the store and also a lot smaller. The men’s section was very small and organized it had a jean section, a shirt, sweater section, a small watch, and fragrance section. The sales associates in this section were men with a few female sales associates on the floor. I noticed that many of the men that were shopping were accompanied by women. The women’s clothing section was located in the 2^nd floor the whole floor was for women clothes and shoes. From looking through men and women’s clothes I found these prices:

Clothes	Women Prices	Men Prices
Guess Jeans	$89.00-$138.00	$89.00-$148.00
Calvin Klein shirts	$39.00-$79.00	$55.00-$98.00
Ralph Lauren sweaters	$ 69.50-$159.00	$49.99-$145.00
Nike Active wear pants	$40.00-$70.00	$40.00-$85.00

 From what appears in this data it seems like men’s clothes are more expensive than women. Although the difference is not much I was shocked to see that men’s clothes were higher in price than women’s clothes. Perhaps these differences are due impart to the fact that men shop less than women therefore certain clothes are more expensive for them. Since women tend to shop more there tends to be more of a variety in prices as well as clothes. Women also tend to spend much more money on other things such as cosmetics, bags, shoes, and accessories, while men not so much, so perhaps that is a reason for the difference in prices.

On the last floor there was the children section. I noticed that there were many couples there shopping or mothers accompanied by their children shopping. As I looked through the prices for boys and girls clothes I found these prices:

Clothes	Girl Prices	Boy Prices
Levi Jeans	$32.00	$32.00-$36.00
North Face Jacket	$69.00	$69.00
Ralph Lauren Tops	$17.50-$27.50	$16.00-$29.50

 

 

 

Again boys clothes seem be more expensive than girl’s clothes, but in this case the difference was very small. I think that this also has to do with the idea that girls need more clothes of different style therefore parents might shop more often for girls clothes as supposed to boys therefore the prices are a bit higher.

This excursion project was very interesting and my findings were a bit shocking. It was interesting to see how department stores such as Macy's are set up, because if you notice women’s items tend to be at the front of the store right when you walk in. Since women tend to be in the shopping scene more they place these items in the front, therefore by the time they get to the clothes section they have already spent a couple of bucks on other things. Women also tend to shop for clothes in bigger quantities which can also explain the different price range. It is also interesting to see that from the few brands I selected men’s clothes tend to be higher in price. Again I think this is because men tend to be less in the shopping scene then women and they tend to go for specific things when shopping therefore when men do get out that one time in the month stores make sure they make up for it. Women tend to be stores main target because of the gender scripts that have been created by society which say that women like to shop and tend to define themselves by their outer appearance and focus more on what they are wearing. Gender scripts affect every part of our lives and explain some of the reason why things are set up in a certain way such as this department store.