The Differences in Money Sense (Spending Habits) and Shopping Behaviour
between Men and WomenCHEOW Puei Kuen (Malaysia)
Malaysia is considered as an upper-middle income country where shopping ispossible for almost all classes of people. Among all shopping destinations, the shopping
mall is the most popular because it is a one-stop destination for shopping,entertainment and restaurants with a cozy environment and eye-catching design.
Therefore, shopping malls are always crowded with people during the weekend eventhough it is not the bargain season. It is so prevalent in Malaysia, a tropical country
with the average temperature of 24oC to 34oC daily, to enjoy window shopping in the
air-conditioning shopping malls as a way to spend their leisure time.
Similar to other men and women around the world, Malaysian men and women
have different spending habits and shopping behavior. In terms of spending habits,
women spend money on a larger variety of items compared to men. From clothing,
footwear, accessories, cosmetics to gifts and souvenirs, women can always spend on
something that never appeared in their shopping list before. Opposed to this, most men
spend money only for the items that is on their mind and seldom purchase somethingthat is not on their list. Women tend to spend for quantity while men tend to spend forquality. One of the possible reasons for this is that women need a different design of aparticular type of item for mixing and matching in different situations.

Meanwhile

men emphasize quality as they usually do not put in as much effort as women in termsof the mixing and matching of their clothing.
Other than the above mentioned differences, women are more alert to sales andpromotion periods compared to men as that is the time for women to enjoy a shopping
spree without much concern about the amount of money left in their purses.

As mostof the men only spend money on their desired items, they are less attracted to sales andpromotion. Besides this, most women like the feeling of spending money and take it as away to release stress. To avoid feeling guilty for the frequent purchase, they will findand give a good reason for their spending. Men, on the contrary, tend to feel guilty forspending unnecessary money. This may be due to their responsibility and burden insupporting the family and for future planning. In this aspect, women are less conscious
about savings and tend to rely on their partner for future planning, since they havemore concern for present lifestyles. For example, women seldom miss sales and thepromotion times to purchase goods and products, even though they do not really needthose items. However, they will try to persuade themselves psychologically that they are
actually saving money and are one step closer to becoming a wise consumer for buying agood bargain during the sales.
For shopping behavior, women like to walk at a relaxed pace from one store toanother, examining merchandise, comparing products and prices, trying on samples,
asking for explanation about their desired items and trying to seek out the best buy forthe money. They just simply enjoy the pleasure to shop around freely and aimlessly, toexamine new products and hunt for sales and bargain. The thrill and excitement when
they found something nice and cheap is unbeatable as if they finally found the treasurechest in a treasure hunt. This is especially significant among post-secondary students
as they are frequent and long-staying visitors to shopping malls. Men only look foritems that they intend to buy and are not interested in window shopping. If they know
the location of the particular store, they will just go straight to the store, purchase their
desired item and go home. Some of them even think that window shopping or shopping
aimlessly is a waste of time.
However, there will be some slight changes in the spending habits and shopping
behavior if men and women shop together as couple. The majority of the Malaysian
males are willing to shop with their partner slowly and patiently although there arestill some boring faces. Some of the couples hold different purchase decisions while forsome couples, women make the purchase decision and their partner will pay for theitem. In Malaysia, men paying for the women dining and shopping are prevalentespecially for the elder generation. This is quite similar to other Asian countries where
men are usually the ones who hold the financial authority in a family. However, withthe increasing number of working women nowadays, the younger generation show thetendency to support the “Going Dutch” date practice, especially among friends ofdifferent gender and student couples who are less affluent. This situation will revert
back to the conventional practice after the men achieve stability in their financialpower.

Women tend to shop from floor to floor while men do not.

Men usually accompany and follow their partner to shop around. Women usually decide whereto shop and what to buy.