The Goal of Shopping

choosing vs. settling

Jul 28, 2024

The goal of shopping is not to buy things.

a Structure of Style™ Principle

Contrary to what marketing, influencers, and Amazon will tell you, when we believe that the end result of shopping is to buy things, we’ve already lost the game.

I first voiced this principle to one of my clients last year. She had planned a much needed day to shop in-person for a few specific items on her wardrobe list. She works full time, has a partner, and is a mom to a toddler - carving out time to shop for herself, like a lot of women, usually fell to the furthest priority on her list. There was a lot riding on this day - to take advantage of the time, to check things off her list, to fill wardrobe gaps.

When we reviewed her purchases after her shopping day, there were some items she loved and others that she confessed were “just okay, but it’s what they had.”

I love buying things. Sometimes I go to Amazon and put things in my cart for a quick little dopamine hit. Often, just thinking about buying things is fun.

But while I love buying things, I rarely actually buy things.

Years of thrifting and shopping second hand has ingrained the law of thrifting - you will never find something if you want to find it- in my mind. It’s a rare day of thrifting when you find a specific item you’re looking for. You must go in open minded and for the love of the hunt.

I know this is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s not very efficient and is often unproductive. But the goal of thrifting is the search. It’s seeing what treasures you can turn up and maybe one of those will also be something you want or need.

I often give my clients a tough love, truth check:

“Online shopping is going to feel hard and often be very frustrating.”
“Shopping in stores will exhaust you and they won’t have as many options as online.”
“Yes, you do need to order multiple sizes.”
“Have you returned those shoes yet?”
“This is going to take time.”
“Not everything in your wardrobe will always go with everything else all the time.”

Back to my client and her Target pieces.

I gave my tough love, truth check and told her: Because the goal of this shopping trip was to buy something, you bought pieces you settled for. The pieces you bought didn’t check off all of the things you said you wanted for your wardrobe. Instead of moving on when it was clear the items didn’t check your list, you settled for things that were only okay. And that is a great lesson as well - because now you know what settling for pieces looks and feels like.

This came up again, just this past week, in a conversation with my husband. He is working through my Structure of Style program to hone in on his style as he’s in a new career but still wants to retain a sense of singularity and personality in his wardrobe.

I told him: developing your Structure of Style allows you to create a filter for yourself that makes shopping easier. All of a sudden, with your structure, you have very specific details around your vibe, colors, shapes, and body that allows you to pinpoint what you want to wear (and why) and what you want to ignore.

This principle switches your shopping mentality.

It frees you from feeling like shopping has to end in buying things - a goal that often results in frustration and settling.

With the knowledge of your structure of style, you can create efficiencies in shopping. Shopping starts to look more like a quick perusal of categories you’re in need of or interested in, an inventory of shapes and colors, and evaluating if what is offered is what you need.

If not? Great, you get to leave and move on with your day.

This filter transform the goal of shopping from buying things to evaluating what the store has that fits into your parameters and is therefore worth buying.

An item becomes worth buying when it checks off something on your list, not because it’s hanging on a rack and it’s what the store has decided they want to offer you.

When you integrate this principle, shopping no longer becomes a destination associated with time, hopes and specific results. It becomes a checklist that you learn how to quickly navigate.

And yes, this does lead into another Structure of Style principle. The principle of You don’t need to buy anything, which, in the day of Amazon and influencers and the pressure that our wardrobes are always needing the next and best, is another email for another day.

THOUGHTS FOR YOU

What do your shopping habits look like?
How does this concept land for you?

Vogue [ish]

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