What do women want?

[Copyqueen]

Hi all,

This feature (in the latest issue of Multi-Channel Marketing) focuses on Mooney's recent research investigating the female online shopper....

Thought it may be of interest...

http://www.multichannelmarketing.co.uk/contentdetail.php?id=CNT_4447581a5cdea

Anna

[mattk]

Shoes, make-up and chocolate if my girlfriend is anything to go by!

[Gillie]

Oh Matt, watch them get you now!! You know that comment will upset someone!

Gill

www.oak-web.com

[SillyJokes]

Nice article Anna, you are so right about leaving good in the online basket - it can take ages to shop so when the basket self empties that is the pits.

[Niteflyer]

Funny, cos mine just wants to do the washing up, cooking, cleaning etc..... ;)

[MarkD]

I think if there was one answer then one could become seriously rich!

However on a business note I think the question is...

What do women want from the service or product I provide?

And then try to deliver the answers!

[c2webdesign]

Didn't get a chance to read in full (but will definately read later).

I have read a few articles recently about design mainly being a man thing - and turning women off (especially with overpowering blues etc...).

From experience (hope I don't get flamed down with this ;) ) women like their website simplistically clear, extremely easy to understand and use and are less concerned with a 'professional' look.

Men don't mind digging a little deeper to get what they want.......but are more concerned with appearence !

Seems the same subject is popping up a bit lately......

[Coding Monkey]

Well, 90% of our clients are female, and the designer is male. How do I read into that one?!

[annethedonn]

One of those channels where you can ring up and the man takes something off!!!! I have noticed there is just nothing for us women - we really don't want what men want that's it!!!!

[annethedonn]

PS - read the article and I think the comment about 'women are absurdly hard to please' is quite a sweeping statement and to be honest a little offensive - not all of us are you just need to know what buttons to push.....

What I, as a woman, want:

A housekeeper (pref male and wearing a nice little outfit and a feather duster)
An in house chef (male) - I have one actually, my hubby!
A reason not to have a headache!
An on demand masseur
Someone to do my shopping for me because I HATE shopping!!!!!!!
Not to have to have womens bits staring at me everytime I go into a newsagents, petrol station, watch a TV program, or drive past a billboard.

I could go on....... lol.

[annethedonn]

Didn't get a chance to read in full (but will definately read later).

I have read a few articles recently about design mainly being a man thing - and turning women off (especially with overpowering blues etc...).

From experience (hope I don't get flamed down with this ;) ) women like their website simplistically clear, extremely easy to understand and use and are less concerned with a 'professional' look.



Men don't mind digging a little deeper to get what they want.......but are more concerned with appearence !

Seems the same subject is popping up a bit lately......

On the contrary - a professional look is a must! Easy to navigate and informative. Pleasant on the eye.

[SillyJokes]

I think ease of use is high, contrary to popular belief women don't want to spend forever shopping.

I would also like domestic staff to do all the **** jobs women do around on the home which apparantly 'shoes amd pretty handbags' more than compensate for.

Women are picky and return stuff more so I agree with the article when it says the website must give full information but I'm not convinced that long copy sells online where reading is more difficult than in print.

[Coding Monkey]

On the contrary - a professional look is a must! Easy to navigate and informative. Pleasant on the eye.

Yep, I actually find the women who contact us are far more understanding of the importance of image over men. I won't generalise, but the few male clients we have often run long, established companies, who have come to understand what it means to present yourself, whereas the women want it decent from the start.

[Copyqueen]

Thanks for all the feedback!

SJ, sites that "forget" my basket contents drive me mad!! Why can't they just be patient with me....?!! And, when I say 'long copy' I don't mean a huge block of text.... just enough of the technical information, bullet-pointed, to give answers. The format where a bit of fun sales blurb precedes bulleted technical info (like www.girlsbits.com) is perfect. People can read if they like, and get the key info fast. Sites with one line of copy on a product aren't likely to win me over.

I think having an opinion on professional appearance is dependent on web experience... not gender. The more websites you're exposed to, the higher your expectations become. Having said that, I suspect there is an element of truth in the gender/colour research!!

R.e. ease of use - I am web-savvy and can quickly burrow through web pages to get to what I want; my other half takes forever, partly because he just doesn't spend as much time online.

Women return stuff more... that's interesting, isn't it? I wonder whether there is anything we can do to prevent this happening? Hm, new chain of thought entirely!......

P.S. I write for MCM most months, so if anyone has something they would like to see covered, drop me a PM!!

[gary]

Some interesting points there, especially about the basket emptying too soon. We have a very mixed market so designing for one gender or another is not really an option - most feedback we get from women is that the site is easy to use which is great, but we're always trying to improve it based on the feedback we get.

The part about including as much detail as possible is very valid - the problem is many people don't read it and we still get emails and phone calls asking about information that is on the site. I don't mind of course, I would rather customers phoned up and checked than buying something they weren't sure of, but it does raise the question as to how much information is too much.

[Cornish Steve]

The article is so full of stereotypes. If I was to buy a big-screen television, I would not be focused only on size. Does that mean I'm not a man?

I'm amazed at how we still demean women and make sweeping statements about them. It's desperately unfair. Just to throw some fat on the fire, I suggest that women should be given preferential treatment until the male population treats them equally. If that means quotas in some areas of business, so be it!

[She Says]

I really like to see personal testimonials. Even thought I know on some level they could all be fabricated! On the other hand my OH distrusts testimonials, specifically because he suspects thay are all fabricated!

I do not know if that is representative of the general population but I WILL be including testimonials in our website ;)

[gary]

Testimonials are often conflicting for that very reason - we have genuine testimonials from happy customers, even though they're not promoted that much on the site so I'm not sure if they make much difference. How about customer product reviews like they have on Amazon? Do they make any difference for other products?