South Asians are the World’s biggest Shopaholics

whats new?

go to any bazaar and you will see aunty ji`s of every social strata haggling with dukandaars over the latest and greates version of lawn cotton...

go to oxford street on a saturday and you`ll see gori aunty jis doing the same thing (maybe not haggling)...

women shop, they keep the economy going!!!

Hello
I think this article is very misleading mainly because the evidence it cites is not completely correct. Although the conclusion may not be far from the truth.

If I am correct (please correct me if this is wrong), the original survey is here:

http://www2.acnielsen.com/news/20051019.shtml

where under Asia the only south asian country I see is India.

The quote by the survey representative is here:
http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/sct0706/asia_in_brief.php.
Where ``most asian countries`` means highly developed countries like Singapore etc (as ascertained by the examples of several asia pacific countries that follow the quote).

There is a difference between a techy consumer in Asia pacific and a consumer in south asia. It is true that south asians (atleast the Pakistani`s/Indians/Bangladeshis I know in the bay area) are very much into their acquired products. Those in these countries may also add to the consumer quota whenever they travel to Singapore, Japan etc.

But I do not think that south asian consumerism is worse than what it is world wide. It shines out more because those who can afford it either flaunt it or the environment allows them to stand out because of their goods. It is, of course, sad to see this and easy to blame the consumer that he/she (or the government) is not sensitive to the needs of so many citizens who are hungry, homeless etc. But, the more important question is why we shop? Survey stats are usually worthless mainly because they do not covary factors like class, financial situation, climate (for outdoor shopping) and more population (in the Asian countries) so to speak. Once these factors are considered, several patterns may emerge that link individual need to shop to more global issues and may not show any geographical differences between ``shoppers``. These surveys generally benefit corporations not individuals.
OK, time to log out. I have to go buy a pair of shoes :).
M