An Economist Goes Discount Dress Shopping
Alyssa Morell drove slowly behind the young man walking in front of her. His crisp white shirt and black pinstripe pants indicated that he had money. He was too good looking and too confident not to be a player. The care-free way he spoke on his phone indicated He was neither worried about time nor aware of her presence. The lights in his white convertible BMW flashed as he shifted the bags in his hands. It was at this moment he noticed her. He looked into the windshield of her Camry and saw an attractive woman. He smiled and tried to wave, juggling the items in his hands. She smiled but did not wave. She wanted his parking spot, not his phone number.
As a woman in the field of Advanced Analytics, she was used to commanding attention with her confidence and intensity. She was also attractive, which helped, but she was well aware that relying on beauty when trying to gain respect hurt more than helped.
As an undergrad at the University of Maryland, she understood that if she wanted to compete in a field dominated by men that she would have to be as aggressive in the classroom as she was on the soccer field. Her tenacity earned her a scholarship. And she knew that the traits developed on the field were transferrable to her future career. She’d maintained the smooth movements and lithe frame of her sports days. But she knew her looks would only be an advantage if she could demonstrate her intelligence. One way she knew to do this was to infuse her writing and conversations with an apt quote, a relatable anecdote, or little known fact that could illustrate the point she was making.
Morell wanted to reflect technical expertise and polymathic learning. Her beauty and personality disarmed people, her intelligence kept them off balance. For instance, she would quote from King Lear “Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws / My services are bound” during a discussion on the Bayesian worldview. She enjoyed even more watching a surprised colleague nod solemnly in hopes of seeming like he was aware of the Shakespearean line.
Her dark brown hair that went just below her shoulders and well-toned frame complimented her business casual fashion sense. Her pencil skirts, high heels, and well-pressed shirts drew the attention of males invested in their libidos. As one colleague said, “It’s not that we think we have a shot with her or even want to. It’s just good to have someone nice to look at.” Many female colleagues viewed her with a begrudging ambivalence. It seemed unfair that a woman could have good looks, social adaptability, and be able to achieve success in a man’s world. She represented that which was good about the 21st century woman. But it was too easy to think, “why her and not me.”
Morell enjoyed shopping because it was economics at its most obvious level. The mall added an extra level of interest because, unlike grocery shopping, you dealt exclusively with luxury items. Yes, shoes and clothes were necessary, but when you went to the mall to get things, you were shopping for more than just necessities. Even when you went for value, it was a value relative to your class standards, not the type of value that the truly poor must consider.
As she walked through Green Hills Mall—the mall centered in the area of Nashville that melded old money and new—she couldn’t help but think about how financial economics was an odd art that blended the certitude of numbers with the unpredictable psychology of humans. For example, she new that she didn’t need a new outfit for this faculty party she was invited to, but she felt compelled to get one. The confidence she would have wearing something she’d just bought was worth paying for. And if that confidence could help make a stronger impression, then what she bought was a valuable investment. But how much worth does that investment have?
After a quick walk through at Express, she decided that if she were buying something special for a specific event, she should invest more. She could get a new outfit there for $30. But she felt she needed to pay more. She walked past Juicy Couture without even glancing towards it because a new outfit would cost $300 on sale. That was too much. She knew she needed something between $30 and $300. The difference, that middle ground, reflected consumer surplus. Her goal was to get as close to $30 as possible while trying to find an outfit that they could have sold for $300. The clothing stores wanted the inverse, to get her as close as possible to $300 for something they could have sold for $30.
This type of cost-value analysis applied to many situations, from dating to drafting a football team. Most of her friends enjoyed the chess match of maximizing profits while minimizing labor. This is what frustrated her about her field of study. So many women found interest in the theoretical aspects of economics, especially when it came to spending money. But men overwhelmingly dominated the field. She knew this stemmed from an antiquated notion that women couldn’t do math. Obviously, some men also shied away from economics for the same reason. But the point was that the building blocks shouldn’t scare you away from the actual building. For instance, learning to read is hard, but once you learn, the work is worth it.
Morell shook those thoughts from her mind in order to focus on the economics at hand. She walked into Ann Taylor Loft not knowing what she was looking for but conscious she’d know it when she found it. She perused the sale items noting they reflected an excess of supply and that companies lowered the prices in order to avoid a complete profit loss. It was the closest a consumer could get to taking advantage of the companies.
Even with a sale Ann Taylor Loft made profits many times the cost of the clothing sold. Morell spotted a black skirt-white blouse out. She recognized it from the spring catalogue and noticed there was no price tag. She shrugged, walked to the changing rooms, and tried it on. Morell liked the color black because of its simplicity. The higher up you go, the less you needed to say. But she knew a powerful woman dresses her pay. A man could wear a Hawaiian shirt to a business meeting. A woman could not.
The girl working the register rang it up as $140. Morell blinked in disbelief, “Excuse me, there must be some sort of mistake. This item’s on sale, right?”
“No ma’am. It’s $140, full price. Now, will you be paying with cash or a card?”
Morell’s eyes narrowed. She examined the girl, a blonde close to her in size but whose frame, Morell figured, was due more from genetics than Division I college sports.
“What size do you wear?” Morell demanded.
“I’m sorry?” the worker said.
“Your size. Are you size 4 like me? About 115 pounds?”
“I…Yes…No…It depends. Why do you even care?”
“You said this outfit was full price. But all the other items I saw in the spring catalogue were in the front of the store on the sales rack. If this skirt and shirt combo were so popular that it were still full price, you would have more than one in this size. Your boss–I’d like his or her name by the way—would have them overstocked like the rest of the outfits in that area of the store.
Large, successful companies are in the business of overestimating demand, not underestimating it. The profit in selling the outfit is so much greater than the cost to make it, it only makes sense to order too much than not enough, especially for a place like. If it were popular enough to re-order, it’d be popular enough to over-order. My guess is that you wanted the outfit for yourself.
Maybe someone returned this earlier today. Anyway, you saw it on the sales rack, which means once you used your employee discount, you would be buying it for less than a quarter for what it was worth. Because of that, your manager–I’m still waiting for you to give me that name by the way—probably didn’t want you reserving it for yourself. If that outfit made it to the end of the day, it was yours. But you had a feeling it wouldn’t. So you decided to hide it and ‘punish’ anyone who bought it by making them pay full price. C’mon. Am I right or am I right?”
The girl stared at Morell as if the professor had just juggled fire.
“L-l-l-ook,” she stammered. “I…uh…am sorry. Let’s not make a big deal of this.”
Her hands shook as she scanned the tag and $70 appeared on the register. The girl typed for a few moments and then $45 appeared. “Wow…ha…bigger sale than you thought, right? Forty-five dollars.”
Morell saw the girl couldn’t be older than 20. And something about her nervousness and disappointment reminded the professor of her struggling undergrads, “Look, you don’t have to do that. I just–”
“I know. I want to. I don’t know who you are. But that was amazing. My name’s Jessie. How’d you do that?”
“I’ve got a PhD in Economics. That’s the study of how everything flows: money, information, ideas, everything. It’s a good field of study. Lots of jobs, lots of opportunities. There’s some math, but nothing you can’t handle if you work at it. You should think about it. We could use more women.”
“I don’t know…School…I don’t really…”
“My name’s Alyssa Morell. Here’s my card. Think about it. If you change your mind, we can talk.”
Jessie nodded slowly as she read it. Morell checked her watch. “Look, Jessie I gotta go. Thanks for the discount. Hopefully, I’ll see you later.”
Morell exited the store and got in her car. She sighed as she realized the irony of wanting to buy an outfit to increase her confidence when it was her confidence that saved her over $100.
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