I’m willing to admit it. In fact, it can be quite hard to hide. I have big feet.

Despite having parents of average height my mother’s parents’ genes found their way down the line to me and ended up with above average height and big feet.

I’m fine about them. They aren’t circus huge or anything. However, when it comes to buying shoes I’ve come to learn that the chances of disappointment are quite high.

I walk round the shop find one or two styles I like and ask the usual question. “Do you have these in a size 12 or 13?”

The answer is frequently no. Which is annoying because I know they make shoes in this size – plenty of people have bigger feet than me – but the retailers don’t stock many pairs and they soon sell out.

You could argue that they are best placed to judge what sizes they should stock to avoid being left with unsold shoes, but there’s a chicken and egg problem: I suspect people like me get so fed up hearing “no” that they buy on-line or from the one or two stores that haven’t disappointed them. So the stores that don’t stock many large sizes never learn what they’re missing out on.

Curiously, a recent study conducted on the night of the US election sheds some light on why people like me might react the way we do.

Researchers at Duke University and the University of Michigan monitored testosterone levels of people who voted in the election.

What they discovered was that testosterone levels of Republican men dropped significantly when Barack Obama’s victory was announced.

Democrat men gained a small boost, evidenced by their testosterone levels staying constant when they would have usually been decreasing at that time of night.

The results mirror what has been discovered happens when men take part in interpersonal contests: the winner’s testosterone increases and the losers drops.

It may have occurred to you that this “man win (or man’s candidate win), man feel more manly” thing is quite caveman-like.

And it is.

In some ways, we haven’t evolved so very much from our caveman days. Days when us men spent our time hunting and fighting – sometimes literally – for status amongst our little group or for power over the group who lived over the river.

Most people don’t hunt any more, but we still compete all the time: football, Scrabble, poker, athletics… we need an outlet for it.

It’s the same with hunting. Nowadays we spend time tracking deals on the internet or looking around shops for the product we want. And when we get it we feel good.

Most men don’t enjoy the browsing (foraging) that many women delight in. But they still like to consume because of the satisfaction of that moment of the kill.

Which brings me back to those shoes. It’s likely that I experience a drop in testosterone when that cool pair of training shoes gets away from me.

And too many blows like that can get to a man, forcing him to find some way to win the battle.

It’s worth considering how your customers, particularly the male ones, feel when you don’t have what they want. You may be missing out more than you know.

Source: Duke University (2009, October 21). Presidential Election Outcome Changed Voters’ Testosterone. ScienceDaily. sciencedaily.com­/releases/2009/10/091020181257

Image courtesy: Ben Sutherland