Changing Buying Behavior in Retail by Marty Schulz
Challenging Times in Retail
Today, more and more couples work outside of the home. Working more leads to having less time to perform the routine duties of keeping up a household, most notably the duty of shopping. To compensate for a lack of time, couples are finding it necessary to share the shopping duties. This has led to a blurring of the traditional shopping roles. Where women once did a vast majority of the grocery shopping, now men are beginning to take on a larger role. Where men traditionally did the vast majority of hardware store purchases, women are taking on a larger role.
These role reversals are leading to interesting challenges to retailers. You see, men and women are very different types of shoppers. Stores that were traditionally set up for women, are boring for guysÖand visa versa. Lets look at a few buying styles of both men and women to get some basic clues on the opportunities and challenges now facing American retailers.
1. Women tend to look at prices more than men. About 86% of women look at prices when they shop, about 72% of men do.
2. Men move much faster through the shopping experience. They get in and get out. They rarely enjoy the experience like women do. Women love to browse, inspect and patiently work their way through a store.
3. Men hate to ask for directions and prefer to get information from written materials, instructional videos or computer screens. Men will go directly to information displays to find something. Women prefer to talk to a customer service representative.
4. Women love to buy what goes into a home, men love buy what goes outside of the home. Men buy yard and garden, women buy interiors.
5. Men are much more easily upgraded in purchasing decisions than women are. Men seem so anxious to get out of the shopping experience that theyíll say ìyesî to about anything.
6. Both men and women buy on impulse. Fully 60 to 70 percent of supermarket purchases are unplanned. Men are particularly vulnerable to the immediate wants of their children and to end of isle displays.
7. If you want to sell more to men, get them involved in their traditional roles. Men typically choose and provide drinks for guests. Therefore, a supermarket beer and wine section should contain the ìtoolsî of the bar tending trade. Different types of glasses, ice tongs, corkscrews, shakers and knives. This engages a guy and makes shopping more interesting.
8. Consider having a ìMenís Healthî section in your grocery store. If a guy needs sun block for this weekendís fishing trip, heís not going to hunt through cheek blush and eye shadow to find it. Menís skin products, muscle pain treatments, vitamins, fragrance need to be separated out from the women section.
9. Men want to find what they need then get out. If men are forced to ìshopî theyíll likely give up in frustration and exit. Men love isle signage.
10. Women are patient, inquisitive and completely at ease in a space that gradually opens itself up.
11. Make isles wide enough to accommodate both readers and shoppers if you want women to do serious shopping. The narrower the quarters, the less time a women will spend shopping that area.
In todayís marketplace, the challenge is to take stores and products that historically have be designed to capture the female shopper and make them safe and inviting for guys. For women shoppers, the challenge is to transform traditionally ìmaleî products and make them appealing to women. The businesses that succeed in this transformation process will likely be the industry leaders of tomorrow.
Marty Schulz is a business counselor for Linn-Benton Community Collegesí Business Development Center. The center exists to help local business owners achieve greater success. If you have questions, please feel free to call him at 757-8944 x5145 or E-mail him at marty.schulz@linnbenton.edu
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