Honey, Do You Really Need A Purse That Big?
I am confident that every guy has said to his significant other one of these phrases:
- Why is your purse so big?
- I can’t believe how much stuff you have in your purse!
- Do you really need 20 different purses?
I know I have said those phrases and others. If you have ever wondered what items are in those big, fashion-oriented bags you need to keep reading.
Consumer strategist Kelley Styring’s study, In Your Purse: Archeology of the American Handbag, is the first qualitative and quantitative study of both the contents and the context of a woman’s purse. The study’s results were released in April at the M2W™-The Marketing-to-Women Conference in Chicago and were the buzz at the conference.
After reviewing Kelly’s website and marketing materials I was very surprised on most of the data but found the information absolutely fascinating.
- Did you know there are 8 different purse types?
- 86% of purses had keys
- 63% of purses contain food/gum/beverage
- 51% of every purse has trash
- 14% of purses had weapons
The main thing that was found is billions of dollars in revenue opportunities for marketers!
“Contradiction is where the genius of innovation lies, and the purse is a bag of contradiction on a string,” says Styring, a former Frito-Lay consumer strategy director and Procter & Gamble researcher who now consults with Fortune 100 companies through her company, InsightFarm. “I found that the purse - the nerve center of a woman’s life, bearer of her most important things – is also a disorganized bag full of junk. But that’s where the opportunity exists for marketers to fulfill unmet needs.”
Styring found that 95 percent of U.S. women aged 18-64 carry a purse every day, and that they carry 2.4 purses on a regular basis. Since women make 70 percent of all retail buys, that purse becomes a key purchasing instrument, the only physical link between the home (where needs are created) and the store (where those needs can be fulfilled).
Kelley spent 100 hours interviewing 100 women and cataloguing 100 purses and their contents which was 6,670 objects (guys do the math). On average that is 66 items in each purse! I feel your pain when someone asks you to hold their bag – considering on average they weigh over 3 pounds.
If you are a curious person or a marketer looking for opportunities to better market your products, you most certainly want to reach out and contact Kelley and find out more about this fascinating study.
Kelley – nice job. Keep up the good work!
If you want to hear more about Kelley’s research and you are going to be in Dallas on July 19th, please sign up for the Consumer Understanding Summit at: http://www.marcresearch.com/summit/.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Kelley,
It is so good to see your work again! Appreciated your insights long ago at Frito. Look forward to seeing more.
So what do you tell marketers about those of us who will only carry small purses to save our necks, backs, and shoulders? My guess is those contents become even more important!
Healthy Regards,
Maryellen
July 18th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Merrill,
This is really interesting research. I can relate as I have a big bag that I absolutely love. It’s beautiful and I get a ton of compliments on it - but it’s pretty heavy. Guys always say, “Can that bag be any bigger??” and women always say, “I love your bag!”. I would estimate that it weighs about 10lbs on an average day. I couldn’t believe how much stuff was in there when I went to clean it out last week. The astonishing part to me was when I had emptied its contents, I realized that the bag still weighed about 5lbs on its own - nothing in it. (I should do curls at my desk during the day!) But the point is the contents. I had everything spread out and thought, do I really need 4 pens, 3 lip liners, 2 lipsticks, 3 lipgosses, a wallet and a separate change purse and those lovely wrappers that had accumulated at the bottom? Probably not, but my thought process is “you never know”…I’m sure you can tell a lot about a woman by going through her purse.
Kelley, you can look through my purse any day and let me know what you think
Nicole
July 18th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Yes I do need a bag that big! I have had lots of men tell me that this is why I have a bad back. It isn’t the REASON - but I would bet it is exacerbated by the bag. So tell me - you have never asked a woman to HOLD something for you in her bag?? Bet you have!
July 18th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I call myself the “bag” lady. But, you can make fun of women like me all you want. When you or your kid needs a band-aid to cover a boo boo, just ask me. When you need a nail file for a hang nail, just ask me. When you need an aspirin to relieve the pain caused by the stress in your life, just ask me. If you need a mint because you just ate an onion, just ask me. If you have a crying jag or a wet sneeze and need a tissue, just ask me. If you need floss after eating corn on the cob, just ask me. Need I go on? The only way to become indispensable in the world is to become a “bag” lady. And, by the way, I like bags that have lots of compartments so I can find the items you need when you need them. Now, that’s good customer service!
July 18th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
A few years ago, in an effort to reduce the amount of “crap” I was carrying, not to mention the weight, I decided I was going to simplify my life by using only small purses. The theory being that, with limited volume, I’d eliminate all the less necessary items in my purse, be forced not to accumulate trash in the bottom, and only carry the really important things. Plus, the smaller the purse, the less likelihood there would be to “lose” items. With the room to only carry a few things, I’d be able to find everything quickly and easily, right? Wrong. I don’t understand the phenomenon, but every woman knows, whatever you are looking for in a purse, regardless of the number of compartments, is at the bottom and on the side you “look” on last.
I spent a good deal of money on a couple (of course, a girl needs multiple colors – at a minimum, black and brown – think “belts”, guys) small purses, as the price tag on a purse is not exactly proportional to its size. There, I had accomplished my goal! I had nice small purses which hold only the pertinent items- a wallet, a lipstick or 2, a cell phone, my keys- all the essentials, right?
At first, this worked well. I felt liberated from the heaviness of the large purse which, as Nicole mentioned, can weigh a lot just on its own. I wasn’t missing anything I didn’t really need. Then, I got a Treo. The Treo, like most PDAs/smartphones, is significantly bigger than an average cell phone. Now, my cell phone didn’t fit so well in my purse, but that’s okay, I’ll just leave it partially unzipped. I began walking around with my tiny purse open on one end so I could accommodate my larger PDA. Then, I added a headset for my phone. I need to carry this, too, right? These are still essential items. I’m not being frivolous. And what about sunglasses? Don’t I need them? I can’t always just leave them in my car. If I don’t have sunglasses, I could be damaging my eyes and that’s not a area of my body I’d like to sacrifice….for what? Carrying a smaller bag? You get the idea….as time went on, not only was my purse so packed that it could no longer close, I had several items sticking out the top! Now, that’s safe! I’m glad I’m protecting all my essential items so well, at least no one will be able to steal the crap I’m no longer carrying!
As you can tell, my experiment didn’t work so well. Sure, I tried to kid myself for the better part of a year, but in reality, I began carrying as much stuff as I did before I became “purse simplified”, I just had it crammed, unsafely and unattractively, in a much smaller area.
I certainly don’t think my problem is unique. There are so many things we, as women, need to carry, not only for ourselves, but others, such as our husbands or children. Many women with small purses may also carry a backpack or, if they are a mother of an infant, a baby bag that doubles as an extended purse, so really, these women are kidding themselves, just like I was with the overflowing small bags I convinced myself made me a less high maintenance woman. These days, I embrace the large purse. I try to clean it out from time to time and only carry my “essential” items, which is a much longer list than it was when my small purse era began, because, the bigger the purse, the more items you consider necessary. Unfortunately, I still rarely zip up my purse- bad habit, I guess.
So, if anyone is looking for a good deal on some nice, leather Coach bags in extra small, let me know. I only wish I had listened to my mother when I told her my plan. She said, “You know this isn’t going to work.” As usual, she was right.
July 19th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Jamie,
Funny that you should ask that. I always ask Trish to hold my keys, tickets and plenty of other things when we go out!
Thanks
Merrill