鑑於消费研究在欧歐美學界已經備受關注，有相當豐富的研究成果，但是在台灣的人文社會學界它還是屬於邊緣尚待開發的領域，因此，本文的目的是評介西方學界關於逛街購物的研究。本文從三方面来說明，首先，本文指出‘shopping’這個英文字在台灣有成爲“英語中用”的流行外来語的趨勢，但是shopping是一個挺複雜的概念，如何精確的翻譯，或是定羲shopping是值得討論的。第二，本文將從性别的角度来探討逛街購物是否男女有别，並且破除都是女人爱逛街的迷思。第三，逛街購物與社會關系，逛街花錢是一件隨性快樂的休閑也是一件理性又累人的工作，逛街購物是一項社會實踐，逛街購物就是生活。

Consumption has been extensively studied by European and American scholars, but has drawn little attention from Taiwanese social scientists. To reduce this gap, the purpose of this paper is to review three core shopping studies issues: clearly defining the meaning of the word "shopping" and to properly locate it in the Chinese language context; decoding the myth that women overwhelmingly love to shop and discussing gender differences in shopping behaviors; and addressing the idea that shopping is embedded in social relations that involve recreational and laborious social practices.