The Shop for Men

According to the story on WP.pl yesterday, the Shop of Men is simply a place in which single men stand in glass display cases so that women can choose the one they would like to take them to the opera or for a long walk on a romantic beach. The genius of the concept is that, whichever man they choose, female customers are guaranteed to get one with the highly desirable characteristic of being capable of standing around in shops for long periods while women look at a bunch of stuff they have no intention of buying.

The tragedy is that the Shop for Men is a concept that would transform the lives of billions of human beings, and make somebody enormous piles of cash. The Shop for Men would sell all the things that men buy on a regular basis under one roof – kind of like a pet shop. I am still developing the concept, but here are some key ideas:

There is a reason that male-dominated professions such as the police and armed forces have uniforms – men have no interest in choosing which clothes to wear each day. Like most men, the clothes I put on in the morning depend on two things: which shirt is next in the pile of shirts, and whether my wife has put the trousers I was wearing yesterday in the wash or not.

Us men would appreciate a similar system when it comes to clothes shopping. The Shop for Men clothing department would consist of three slots in a wall. Push a button and the first slot delivers a shirt, push the next button and the second slot delivers some trousers. The third dispenses underwear. As long as there was a guarantee that the dispensing machines would never deliver items in bright, pastel colours, almost all men will gladly accept the first item that appears and hurry to the next department.

I will never understand the amount of time and money disposable razor companies put into advertising their products. I have no idea which brand of disposable razor I bought last time – all I know is that it was the one that had the largest number of razors in the packet.

The majority of razors are sold in packets of five, or even three. This makes about as much sense as selling petrol in half-litre bottles. Like petrol, the one immutable fact about disposable razors is that you always need more. When I'm forced to buy a packet of three razors, I'm not looking forward to forming a long-term relationship with each one, I'm annoyed that I'm going to have to come back and buy more in a few days.

At the Shop for Men, disposable razors will be sold in crates of at least a thousand. Finance options will also be available for lifetime supplies.

The electrical goods department will take up about 90 percent of floorspace in each Shop for Men. This reflects the fact that, while men spend the minimum time possible differentiating between clothes with infinitely different styles and materials, they will happily spend all day choosing between beige plastic boxes containing functionally identical microchips and other electronic components.

The key to providing the most satisfying electronics shopping experience is to make it as complicated as possible. It's no good asking men to choose between a red, blue or green computer, you have to make them choose between an i7-2600S - 2.8 GHz/3.8 GHz, an i5-2500S - 2.7 GHz/3.7 GHz, or a TL-50: 1600 MHz with two physical cores/four threads.

As many of these apparently random strings of letters, numbers and code words as possible should be displayed on laminated cards for men to point at and argue over. For maximum satisfaction, attractive women will be employed to randomly ask customers about the difference between ROM and RAM.

Ideally, it should only be necessary to visit your local Shop for Men every six months or so. The downside to this is that your purchases will probably come in quite a large box. This can be turned into a marketing advantage. Instead of using boring trucks or vans to deliver goods, the Shop for Men will maintain a fleet of C130 transport aircraft for making parachute drops. Customers will receive an email or SMS giving them the grid reference for their drop and a time, preferable in the middle of the night.

Deliveries will float to the ground in metal canisters or wooden crates that require at least a crowbar and, preferable, a pair of specialised metal tools to open. For a small extra fee, delivery crates will be fitted with radio beacons that emit 'beep, beep' noises that can be located using handheld GPS devices.

Jamie Stokes