There are many kinds of sales rules, among which the subtle but important one is: catch women customers, and you will get everything left.
Everyone thinks that women's money is easy to earn, but this is far from the case.
In February 2000, Paco Underhill, a consumer behaviorist, made a cautious prediction in his famous Why We Buy, which was just published at that time: even though the retail market will pay more attention to men in the future, the market will still follow the changes of women's life style most of the time.
Earlier than that, in 1999, Cathy Matsui, general manager and chief strategist of Goldman Sachs Japan, released a report on "women economics" for the first time. This compound word means "women economy". The report said that because of the low birth rate, shrinking population and weak economy, more and more Japanese women have given up the idea of being full-time wives and returned to work. Their return has also changed the consumption trend in Japan.
This trend continues unabated, and women now account for a higher proportion of consumption decisions.
According to NHK, only 19.7% of Japanese men can make up their minds when buying new cars. Nissan has therefore set up a "Create Feminine Charm" group composed of all female employees, because "women are the protagonists when buying new cars". Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, said that women are not only the main users of Facebook, but also the main force of information, updates and comments. They generated 62% of content (including information, updates and comments) and participated in 71% of fan activities. And Nintendo CEO Iwata Cong At a press conference, she also said that female players accounted for at least 50% of all DS series handheld computers and Wii players.
In the general impression, women's consumption is more concentrated in daily products, such as food and clothing. But the luxury goods agency Jiecheng Group told the First Financial Weekly that higher priced and more durable goods are increasingly taking up the proportion of women's consumption, such as cars. The Porsche represented by Jebsen has many female car owners, and they sometimes hold parties for female car owners.
Parker's prediction is gradually coming true, but this does not mean that the more people who are aware of this matter, the more people who master women's consumption psychology. If Why Customers Buy can be regarded as an enlightening reading of contemporary consumer behavior, one of its contributions is that Parker took the lead in analyzing women's consumption logic. Here are a few:
fastidious. Whether it's Hami melon, house or husband. This is mainly because men seldom have psychological activities when shopping, while women often fall into a certain imagination, such as the use of this product, and summarize the reasons for buying or not buying;
Women care more about the environment. Men only need a place to shop, but women want to walk around calmly. If a place is full of pushing or needs to bend down to find what they want, it will not appeal to female customers;
They really read the packaging and spend money on it;
Supporters of open sales, because female consumers want a little private space when buying, especially when buying cosmetics;
Men like technology itself, while women like to apply it. In other words, they are more concerned about what this advanced gadget can be used for;
Relevance of goods. Women want advice, so if you open a hardware store, screws and plasterboard can be put together with kitchen cabinets and jacuzzi.
The interesting thing is that there is nothing new under the sun. Parker's summary of women's consumption habits is still valid today, but not so many people take them seriously.
Google is on the list at this point. The number of Google+users who were expected to compete with Facebook grew slowly for a time. As of December 2011, there were only 65 million, of which a quarter were registered that month. It seems very far away to catch up with the 800 million registered users and more than 500 million active users of Facebook. Science and technology bloggers tried to explain this situation: an app developer used the "surname based random sampling" method last July to estimate the proportion of female users of Google+- 34%, which ranked at the bottom, far lower than 58% of Facebook and 64% of Twitter.
The logic behind this algorithm is that "women should know how to use social networks better than men". If you ignore - you can say you didn't mean to, but that's worse - female users, it means that you have lost an important product promotion force. NBC Universal's survey shows that 3.3 hours are spent every day on social networks to do things unrelated to work; Log in more than 4 times a day; It is women who have many "brand friends" and social friends. This is also consistent with Sandberg's statement. "Like elaborate financial skills, female users are waiting for Google+to really think of them and welcome them. Before that, they just want to see it 'learn to walk'." J Maureen Henderson said.
This is a delicate game. Also an Internet company, Opensky, a shopping website, has successfully established a dialogue with female consumers, raised $49 million three times in six months, and has 600000 registered users, mainly women in their 30s. These users spend an average of $50 per order, twice the average amount of Amazon.
When summarizing his success, John Caplan, CEO of Opensky, said to China Business Week, "We communicate with them through ways that can arouse their interest in consumption. We help them find new things, provide them with the best expert shopping experience, give them additional information, and help create more product value." Opensky often shares many celebrities' shopping experiences. According to John Caplan, Opensky is more like Twitter than an ordinary e-commerce website.
"Finding good products" is the biggest driving force for women to shop. Under this promotion, the UI interaction of websites, the application of social tools, the quality and description of products, and other perceived brand values are all driving forces to support them to find new things. Among all Opensky users, only 28% of the purchase decisions are made without any reference. More than half of women will share their good or bad consumption experiences online, and 36% of these will help others become "more beautiful".
If it is women's nature to socialize or share, pink and plush are superficial. Unfortunately, this is what many people consider when positioning women's marketing. For example, when Sony was developing the T series digital camera, the market research results showed that women particularly liked the plush products, so the Design Department submitted a proposal to make a plush shaped camera, but it was rejected by the senior management because it was not in line with Sony's style. Instead, we put a lot of effort into color.
"In fact, many women will choose more neutral colors now, because they will not appear weak in the workplace. If black is too sharp, gray and white will be more common choices." Qian Shengmin, a color designer of the design company Designaffairs, told China Business Week.
In fact, a really good design will not only meet the needs of women, unless it is a special product for women.
