Added on Tue 27 Mar 2007
Ideas No. 2 - Sizes in Clothing Shops
The second little idea I’ve wanted to put up here is not really a big one, but something I would immensely love to see put into action.
I’m not big on shopping for clothes at the best of times. But it occurred to me the last time I went in to one of the big department stores to buy some pants or something… It took me forever and was an extremely frustrating process. No wonder I don’t like doing it.
The reason being that my size is at the small end of ‘men’s’ sizes. So I’ve had to develop a method of roaming around the aisles, not paying attention to styles or colours, just working out which racks actually have something in my size. In the bigger department stores working that out is an epic task in itself. Even in medium size stores, it takes a fair bit of searching. By the time I actually find something that fits let alone something I like, I’m fairly frazzled and often ready to go home not buying anything.
So what I’m suggesting is not a huge thing, but it would make shopping for people like me so much easier.
Why don’t they arrange shops according to clothing size?
It would be marvellous to be able to walk to a designated area of the shop and know that every item of clothing you see will (more or less) fit you! They’re all there… if they don’t have your size… you won’t be seeing it. (Nothing worse than seeing the perfect pair of pants, only to find them in every size but yours.)
If the shopkeepers were really careful, they could even account for different brand sizes, I mean in some brands, I might be a small, in others – a medium. The sorting should be based on the size of the body it’s going on and not the number on the tag.
If someone told me a store had opened that was arranged like that… I suspect I would never shop anywhere else again!
Better yet! (…and this probably applies to big department stores more so) they could group all the different types of clothing in my size in that one location… shoes, undies, gloves, T-shits, suits, jumpers… the list goes on.
Once I see a shop like that, I’ll start my campaign to start a supermarket that arranges their shelves in terms of recipes instead of individual ingredients. Ha! – The recipes could be listed at the end of each aisle. Soups to the left, soufflés to the right!! Hey don’t laugh! – Many supermarkets let you shop online now. Online, this sort of thing would be a cinch to arrange.