No rush honey, I am going to sit over here.

I think that there are a lot of us that could have said “duh” to this story. Open Register points us to a Forbes magazine article titled, “Shop 'Til Your Husband Drops”.

Here is the gist of the article. Major retailers like Bloomingdales have made a HUGE discovery. After a “comprehensive analysis to learn how to make shopping more enjoyable.” “Stores need more areas for weary shoppers to relax.” Of course it's only the wise retailers that are catching on, “'Park-your-husband lounges'” are slowly making their way into retailers from Bloomingdales to Kohl's.”

Its taken these retail giants this long to figure it out! I love this from the article, “Retail analysts say it's impossible to quantify the return on investment these lounges bring in. But the results speak for themselves.” Those analysts always have to quantify everything, don't they?

When you read stuff like this it makes you wonder how these business have become retail giants and stayed in business for this long. I guess we as customers have been willing to put up with this stuff for so long that it now seems like news that most men would like to sit and relax while the ladies shop.

What this says is that the most obvious things that matter in the shopping experience have been, in some cases completely ignored by the major retailers. I am sure many of us could have told these stores just what they needed to do, YEARS AGO! You can imagine the amount of money spent on analysis just to figure out that a few chairs for the men to sit in might make a difference. Of course it will take much more analysis and money to discover that its not just men that need a place to sit, but with the aging population there might be a need for the elderly to sit while the younger member of the families shop.

This all goes to show that just because these places are large with multiple outlets they can be completely oblivious to the most obvious things. I hear that in store sales this year are likely to be a bit softer than they had hoped. Yet, Internet sales rose by 20%. Maybe its not just price, but the fact that you can shop comfortably from home without having to drag the mate to the store, where they will just bug you complaining about the lack of a place to sit.