When I went to observe people I chose three places that displayed different products. Macy’s, Walmart, and Vons seemed to be good options.
I went to Macy’s on a Wednesday morning and the majority of people there were women who seemed to be between 25-35. I noticed them mostly in the cosmetics and children’s as well as in the men’s section. To me this seems like the housewife or the live-in girlfriend doing the shopping while the kids are in school or their husbands are at work. There was a few men but they were mostly browsing and seemed to be in a hurry. These women mostly paid with their credit/debit cards, not a lot of cash handling was going on.
At Walmart on a Sunday afternoon, it was a completely different story. There was people everywhere, all kinds of people too. There were families with little kids and big kids, couples, singles, and even a couple of homeless people. I noticed people would pile the stuff into their carts and not really look at prices at first.
I followed this one family around for a bit. It was a Caucasian/ Hispanic family consisting of mom, dad, daughter, and son. They were typical lower middle class American’s and they were mostly buying essentials: milk, shampoo, socks. If there were any items that were pure wants, they mostly belonged to the children. At the check out line, I noticed people were leaving stuff behind, even if they had put it in the cart earlier. Same kind of habits, a lot of credit/ debit cards, but there was not a lot of cash flowing.
Lastly I stopped by Vons on Monday night. There was not very many people out anymore. It was dark out, even though it was only about six o’ clock. The few people I was able to find were there for quick stops. A gallon of milk, or a carton of eggs seemed to be the popular item. When I asked the cashier when they are the busiest she said Sunday around noon. She mentioned that a lot of mom’s bring their kids along to help, but not very many husbands/ boyfriends doing the groceries.
Over all I noticed that the economy is down. It is easy to tell that people are holding back and buying only what they need. Almost none of the purchases I observed were based one wants, aside from children.
Style Tribes
There are a lot of different kinds of people on this campus but there are really only a few that stand out as actual tribes. The first one that comes to mind is obviously the Fashion Marketing and Management. Then you have the culinary students because they have a uniform. the culinary students are also easily distinguished by their shoes, because they usually have on non-slip or really comfortable tennis. The last one i noticed was the graphic design students. they tend to wear alot of plaid and flannel shirts, as well as skinny jeans, and hats.
