Explain Yourself to Female Customers

A Time Magazine feature article uses the term “sheconomy” to refer to the substantial participation of women in making retail purchase decisions among product categories—like consumer electronics—and service categories—like automobile repairs—generally assumed to be the province of men.
     Such mistaken assumptions are nothing new. For years, alert retailers have recognized how women purchase all sorts of “male” items—ranging from undershorts to beer—for the men in their lives. The trend is more pronounced now, though, probably because women are gaining greater earning power.
     Also, there are countervailing trends the Time article doesn’t discuss: In the U.S. at least, it’s likely that husbands will be doing more of the shopping than in the past. A University of New Hampshire analysis concludes that 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.
     Be ready for the husbands while also joining the retailers who are changing their marketing and selling approaches to take account of what women shoppers really want:

• Harley-Davidson’s 650 U.S. dealers have been holding special events to which only women are invited so that the salespeople can patiently explain how the SuperLow model—which features a much lower seat, significantly lighter weight, and more festive color options than past Harleys—is designed to fit the female rider’s desires. Harley also maintains a Women Riders section on its website.
• Midas International is training employees to smile as they use a checklist to describe to the customer each procedure that will be carried out on the customer’s car. The measure of success comes whenever a customer is asked: “Would you be able to explain to your mother what happened at Midas?”
• Best Buy invites groups of their potential customers to listen to why the stores do things in certain ways and then suggest improvements.

     Notice a theme here? Women shoppers to a greater extent than men expect retailers to explain themselves.

Click below for more:
Turn Your Image on a Dime
Recalibrate for Shopper Gender Trends
Identify Influencers in Family Decision Making