Recalibrate for Shopper Gender Trends

In the U.S. at least, it’s likely that husbands will be doing more of the shopping than in the past, and when a wife does do the shopping, she’s more likely than in the past to bring along family and/or friends. Neither of these trends is monumental in magnitude. However, it’s your attention to marginal, but persistent, differences that can give you a retailer’s edge in profitability.
     The chain of logic behind the changes is reflected in an analysis conducted at University of New Hampshire of survey data: During the U.S. economic downturn, husbands were more likely to lose their jobs than were wives, and now, husbands are encountering more difficulty than wives in finding employment.
     As a result, a higher percentage of wives than in the past are finding it necessary, in order to pay the bills, to enter the labor force or to expand their work hours. They’d prefer to be home more with family, but that’s not feasible. One likely consequence of this is that more household responsibilities, including shopping, are being handled by the husbands.
     There are broad individual differences among male shoppers and among female shoppers, but a solid body of research finds that, overall, men tend to think about shopping and conduct themselves as shoppers differently than do women. For instance, researchers at Stanford University asked samples of men and women to contemplate the task of shopping for a new wardrobe. Later, each participant was assigned to plot the route for a cross-country road trip.
     The women in the study were much more likely than the men to plot out a scenic route rather than a direct route. Male shoppers are more purpose-driven. Women are more possibilities-driven.
     Along with this, women are more likely to find emotional comfort from shopping than are men. Put this together with the fact that the wives going to work will long for time with family and friends. When the wife does do the shopping, she’ll want to bring along family and/or friends.
     Recalibrate your merchandising and patterns of salesperson-shopper interactions to turn these shopper gender trends to the advantage of both you and your customers.

Click below for more:
Encourage Group Shopping
Identify Influencers in Family Decision Making
Help Customers Show Off New Products
Design Store Operations for Ecommerce Brains