The women affair

According to internationally recognised marketing strategist and author Mary Lou Quinlan: “Women are the most powerful customers on the planet, influencing or purchasing 85 per cent of everything you make, sell, or offer.”(What She’s Not Telling You, 2010). Trends worth considering are - women being more viral (increased usage of social media); more word of mouth (WOM) for online shopping purchases they make; the frequency of purchase/impulse shopping and the categories in context – fitness, apparel, jewellery, fragrances, home décor, etc.

All about women buyers

The ‘social media’ viral

Kavindra Mishra , Founder Member & VP Sales, Zovi.com shares that though, overall - in the online population, there are a higher proportion of men vs women (70:30). However, on social media, the ratio is equal if not skewed in favour of women. On Facebook especially, women spend more time per session and consume more content than men.

Women, often regarded as the more sociable, caring and sharing gender – are making the most of social media like never before. A whopping 68 per cent of women use social media to stay in touch with friends as opposed to 54 per cent of men. Ishita Swarup, CEO & Co-founder of 99labels.com adds, “Our key audience in social media is women and to a large extent we customise most of our content online for a female audience.”

Women shoppers are buying cosmetics, home décor, jewellery, watches, fashion and fitness equipment online. “Over 45 per cent of all purchases are in the lifestyle category when you look at all e-commerce purchases – both domestic and imports. The eBay India Facebook page has 1.4 million fans out of which 38 per cent are women. Regular engagements through showcasing products, deal listings, contests and conversations help us generate valuable consumer insights,”  shares Deepa Thomas, Head–Partnerships, eBay India.

Richa Kar, CEO Zivame.com  shares that each day a lot of queries come in on our blog which are mostly related to fit and size and our in-house experts answer them. Arindam Bose, MD & Chief Customer Officer,Timtara.com  states that they have a total of 29 per cent of women fans on their social site.

The WOM effect

Women tend to be social with their shopping habits whether it be sharing details of a product they are looking for  and seeking recommendations or sharing what they bought  and making recommendations. Their circle of influence is larger and they shop more frequently.

Swarup averes, “Word of Mouth works for us to a very large extent. Our ‘Invite-a-friend’ referral program promotes word of mouth and is incentivised as it gives our customer added perks for spreading the word.” Kar opines, “We believe that the success of Zivame will be based on WOM marketing. Women do discuss their lingerie needs with each other”. She further explained by giving an example wherein she  shares, “We have seen that one order comes in from a particular college/girls hostel - is followed by a string of orders coming from the same college/hostel. This is clearly WOM working for us.”

For a young brand as Zovi, WOM contributes to around 10 per cent of visits to the website. Even for Rahul Sethi, Founder & CEO at www.LadyBlush.com, WOM is one of the key contributors for getting women shoppers. “Unlike men - who would do research about a product on google and review sites, women go by frends' reference and that plays a very important role in getting new women users. Fifty per cent plus users on our website today are attracted by WoM,” he comments.

Who is this shopper and why?

At 99 labels, 60 per cent of the member base constitutes women. These are largely working women, who are net savvy with spending power and is brand conscious but lacks reach or accessibility or even simply lacks time. For most working women, juggling a job and a home can leave little or no time for shopping. The fact that they can get their best brands at their doorstep and shop from the comfort of their home or office at anytime is highly appealing.

At Ebay, this buyer constitutes home-makers, professionals, entrepreneurs and working women. Zivame divides its shopper into four baskets - working women, home-makers, girl students and men (shopping for their wives/girl friends). For Timtara, the shopper is working women and young girls. LadyBlush portrays a similar pattern, with the buyer being working women dominating the base, followed by home makers. The core TG for Zovi is in the 24-30 age bracket working woman and homemaker. While there is a lot of interest shown by the younger audience, this segment has a lower contribution to overall sales.

While selling to women, both - offline and online, has been a tricky game, one  needs to understand what women are doing online, how and why they surf, and what persuades them to buy from the websites that they buy from.