When it comes to shopping, mature consumers prefer the old-fashioned way _ walking around the stores, according to a Baylor University study. The Baylor researchers said the ``gray marketers,'' 55 years or older, like to see what that are buying before they part with their money and thus go to the stores rather than order from mailed catalogs or television or telephone. ``Many of them actually prefer the social aspects of going shopping,'' says Marjorie Caballero, executive director of the Center for Professional Selling at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business, Waco, Texas. ``They like walking the shops and meeting people. Getting out of the house is something they look forward to,'' she says. She conducted the year-long survey with Baylor Professor Lawrence Chonko, chairman of the Marketing Department, and former Baylor faculty member James Lumpkin, now a marketing professor at the University of Mississippi. The study, ``Direct Marketing to the Elderly: Sources of Dissatisfaction and Remedies,'' was funded by the Andrus Foundation of the American Association of Retired Persons. Sixty percent of the more than 4,000 people surveyed were in the 65-plus age category; 20 percent in the 55-64 age group, and 20 percent were adults up to age 54. More than 2,500 responded to the survey. The study also found that the elderly strongly prefer the ``personal touch'' from sales people and dislike ``high pressure'' sales tactics. The survey had some advice for those doing the selling as well. ``Be patient with the elderly,'' Caballero suggested. ``Don't assume because of their age that they cannot understand complex information. They grasp things just like everybody else, but it may take them longer. ``Don't give them too much clutter to wade through. Their eyesight may not be quite as good; use larger type in your printed material, slow down in your approach, simplify, and, above all, never think of the elderly as `senile' or `cranky' in their ways,'' she says. ``They resent these stereotypes.''
