More on Female Shopping Styles
Last week, I wrote about Male Versus Female Shopping Styles and came away with the conclusion that both genders want deals. As I was thinking about the research that indicated that women are gatherers and like to browse, I wondered what effect, if any, such information would have regarding online selling. I did some more research and discovered some articles that highlight the following:
- A majority of women actively read e-mail newsletters.
- While women use Facebook and Twitter, and like receiving offers from merchants, those channels do not influence their buying decisions as much as product reviews or friends.
- Women like to talk about products, so contests and special offers should be used and promoted on Facebook, Twitter, and other channels.
- Women pay more attention to the terms of a sale, as well as the return and shipping policies.
While it is interesting to learn about a particular gender’s shopping behavior, it is also useful to know that adding features that are of more interest to one gender does not “turn off” or negate the shopping behavior of the other. Of course, this assumes that you are following best practices, like allowing (male?) shoppers to opt out of your newsletter campaigns. While details such as adding a clear link to your return policies may be more important to women, it can still be useful to a significant number of men and is certainly not an impediment to them purchasing.
The bottom line is to use all of the features and channels at your disposal. Do not underestimate the value of features like e-mail campaigns or, as trivial as it might seem, clearly explaining shipping policies.
As for web site aesthetics (color schemes, font selections and sizes, etc.), that is a whole other matter with, I’m sure, lots of different opinions regarding men, women, and age. Sounds like a good thing to research for a future blog!
For more on female shopping styles see:
