Amrit Bhavinani must still buy gifts for everyone on his Christmas list, but he’s not sweating it.
Not yet, at least.
The 25-year-old Atlantan will hit the stores and fill his gift bag on Christmas Eve. He relishes scrambling for the perfect gift at the 11th hour — every year.
“I get to spend the entire month of December without dealing with the crowds and the traffic, except for the last day of December before Christmas, of course,” said Bhavinani. “I like having a deadline.”
Metro Atlanta stores are preparing for the onslaught of manliness this weekend. Atlantic Station is embracing, even celebrating, procrastinating male shoppers with a new event coined Man Shop 2011.
On Christmas Eve, the shopping center will offer free valet, gift wrap and cigars, along with $1 beers (with receipt, at Atlantic Grill). The free gift-wrapping booth, cigars and cheap beer — from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday — are aimed at making the shopping center man-comfortable — and a man-shopping magnet.
Tom Miles, general manager of Atlantic Station, said it’s no secret that men are notorious for delaying the act of gift-buying and oftentimes dread the experience.
“We do our best work with our backs up against the wall. We need the pressure,” he said. “For a lot of men, they look at shopping as misery. We want to turn what can be a stressful experience into a male-bonding experience.”
The demographic of shoppers always shifts as Christmas approaches.
On the day after Thanksgiving, far more women converge on store aisles. On Black Friday, Miles estimates about 75 percent of shoppers at Atlantic Station are women. On Christmas Eve, Miles estimates 90 percent of shoppers at Atlantic Station will be men.
Other shopping centers also see a tilt in demographics on Christmas Eve. But Lauren McNulty, director of marketing and business development at Lenox Square, said she sees plenty of women out the day before Christmas.
Miles got the idea for Man Shop 2011 from his days managing an upscale shopping center in the Detroit area. There, a group of 10 men started a tradition of renting a limo every Christmas Eve for last-minute shopping and revelry. They stopped for drinks. They got their gifts wrapped. They were done and home by 6 p.m.
“They took something they all dreaded and made an event out of it,” said Miles.
For those procrastinating men, Miles recommends shoppers carry lists with the names of people they need to buy gifts for, their sizes and color preferences.
“Shop a couple of hours and take a break, watch sports, have a cigar. Crawl into the man cave and come out and finish the shopping,” he said.
Robyn Spizman, vice president of A Legendary Event catering company and gift-giving expert, said the trick is to make your last-minute shopping “not look like a last-minute gift.”
Even in the midst of a last-minute shopping rush, Spizman recommends pausing a moment to consider if the gift is right. A hand-written card of gratitude, she said, can add a personal touch.
At least one researcher has theorized that shopping habits have their origins in evolution. In a 2009 study, University of Michigan researcher Daniel Kruger wrote that differing shopping habits harken to our foraging days when men hunted for meat and women gathered plant foods. Women in foraging societies returned to the same patches that yielded successful harvests and usually stayed close to home. In modern times, this translates into women tending to spend more time choosing the perfect fabric, color and texture.
Men, on the other hand, often have a specific item in mind and want to get in and get out, just like their ancestors who wanted to hunt meat and bring it home as quickly as possible.
RaShun Harris of Lilburn thinks he was wired to a life-time of procrastination from birth.
“I was born two weeks late and I have been late ever since,” he said. “But what I have found is that I do better work under pressure no matter what I am doing — including holiday shopping.”
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Man Shop 2011
From 2 to 6 p.m. Christmas Eve, Atlantic Station will offer free valet, cigars and $1 beers. A free gift-wrapping booth will be set up in the grassy area known as Central Park. Cigars are free with purchases, and beers will be $1 at Atlantic Grill for any guy with a receipt. Atlantic Station, 1380 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta 404-733-1221, www.atlanticstation.com
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