どっちも meaning: both vs either


A customer in a store is hesitating which of the two items to buy. A shop
assistant or a friend encourages him:「どっちも買っちゃいましょう」.

Could this mean "You should buy both"? Could this mean "You should buy
either"?

To clearly say "You should buy either", how should this be reworded?

Thanks!




If the customer's friend were to encourage him to buy both using the word どっち,
it would be

> どっちも買ったら？

どっちも does not mean either. For that you need to use どっちか. In this situation,
the sentence would be something like

> どっちか買った方がいいよ。

(As an aside, no store clerk I have ever met would say such a thing. And I
don't mean because of the casualness of どっち. I don't think that kind of
presumptuousness would go over well. But who knows? Times are changing. Maybe
some チャラい guy in Harajuku would say something like that.)




If the customer's friend were to encourage him to buy both using the word どっち,
it would be

> どっちも買ったら？

どっちも does not mean either. For that you need to use どっちか. In this situation,
the sentence would be something like

> どっちか買った方がいいよ。

(As an aside, no store clerk I have ever met would say such a thing. And I
don't mean because of the casualness of どっち. I don't think that kind of
presumptuousness would go over well. But who knows? Times are changing. Maybe
some チャラい guy in Harajuku would say something like that.)

