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Women Buy More Tech Than Men
Computerguy5 writes "According to a Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) study, released at this past Consumer Electronics Show (CES), women accounted for $55 billion of the $96 billion dollar market. 40 percent of women surveyed responded that they were treated better when accompanied by a man. CNN reports on the findings."
"Are you judging that by it's cover? Because I don't think you're supposed to do that."
That's due to a fundamental difference between men's and women's attitude to money.
A man will spend $2 on a $1 item because he needs it.
A woman will spend $1 on a $2 item she doesn't need because it's on sale.
(Not my gag, but I don't know the source)
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
I refuse to believed this. I go to Radio Shack fairly often and you rarely see any women in the shops.
I think there is an agenda behind this "Report",
Help fight continental drift.
I don't buy a ton of tech stuff - but I have it. Gifts, building my own stuff, whatever. My fiancee buys a lot, though - laptop, PDA, camera, etc.
Her sister walked into Best Buy and despite my specific instructions, let the salesguy talk her into a much worse digital camera for $100 more. On another occasion, she was talked into a TV tuner card and a "special cable" that she couldn't use without an additional upgrade from her old video card... I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up buying Mac software for her Windows XP box.
It's not just tech, either - lots of women are conned at car dealerships or other sales places. Even if she's smart - she's probably too trusting.
Yes I recall when working for one of the big 3 as an Engineer we all joked about how all our wives, etc. were the ones driving the big trucks though we had bought them for ourselves.
Yet the radio buttons still could not be pushed with a finger-nailed hand...
Plus women simply outnumber men, and not as many are in jail as men.
Nevertheless, I don't believe this for 1 second. They must be stretching the definition of 'tech.'
In my experience, even when women posses tech, it was purchased by a man.
The article is unclear as to whether the tech bought by women is for themselves or their families (husbands/sons).
.. and then says that Sharp now has 50% market share. But, how do we know there is a connection? ..How much of the market share gain do they attribute to the AQUOS line and/or female oriented advertising?
here's a quote:
"women are involved in almost 75 percent of all electronics purchases, and they are increasingly interested in gadgets, from DVD players to digital cameras, for themselves or their families, according to the survey, which was based on telephone interviews with 1,002 U.S. adults in October and done in association with the independent market research firm Rockbridge Associates Inc. "
Involved in purchases?? What's the percent of men? For themselves or their families? What percent do they buy for themselves?
Only thing I conclude from the article is that women pay more for tech. Yes, they purchase more technology. But is the tech they buy is for their husbands and/or sons?
Also there's a part that talks about how Sharp introduced a women oriented product (AQUOS)
This might be a surprise to those here but sometimes girls will buy stuff for guys.
A guy who buys a girl an electronic gift is being "insensitive".
A girl who buys a guy an electronic gift is a total babe.
So maybe all that extra spending is just gifts.
There is a reason for this, one that anyone taking even the most basic Human Factors class is taught -- most of the data available on human factors is based on either military experiments or from Universities, which employ undergrads. Most willing undergrad participants for these experiments tend to be male.
Both of these largely tend to show a niche-section of the population, and the data has a tendency to lean towards the male populace.
Its not just a question of design, its also limited data availability. Go look at Salvendy et al or any book on Engineering Psychology - you will realize that what really makes a strong case for you is the data thats available to you.
Women probably buy more cell phones than men; and I'm sure that cell phones make up a large portion of the tech market.
40 percent of women surveyed responded that they were treated better when accompanied by a man./em?
I have a classic household. I earn the dough, she runs the house. We work together with the kids (now 18 and 16). We are both happy with this arrangement. I am a geek - Linux, Windows, C, Java, that is my territory. She runs the house - including plumbing, electricity, and all that it takes to make the house work. We have had extensions to the house - we agree it, she gets the contractors to do it, I pay. All fine.
Except, will the contractors, or any workman we call in, listen to her? Will pigs fly? Over and over again I have to relay *her* orders to the contractors - because they won't obey a female voice. It makes my blood boil, over and over again, when I have to phone some stupid contractor to tell him, in a bass voice, what my wife has told him contralto, and been ignored.
OK, our household is eccenrtic (for a lot more than is in this post). But WTF cannot contractors respect the pover of the the chequebook (checkbook) and DO WHAT THEY ARE PAID FOR!
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
People tend to be pretty sensitive about their purchasing experiences when shopping. With cars, there are usually a lot of competitors within easy driving range. If a woman feels peeved that she's not being properly treated, she simply won't shop at that store. The free market should take care of things, to be honest.
I'm not married, but I suspect that if I was and was talking to a furniture salesman at an interior furnishings store with my wife, the wife is more likely to be addressed by default. I suspect the salesman would end up speaking more to whoever is asking more questions, in the end. I don't find the concept of this particularly offensive or irritating.
My guess about the feature list: as Slashdotters love to note about tech items, many technology products have bullet points and specs listed that are not particularly useful in actually judging the limitations and capabilities of the product. For some reason, some quirk of the male and female psyche, I rarely see females proudly enumerating, showing off products to their friends based on bullet points. I *do* see guys doing this. Hence, different bullet points being handed to the men. It's just something that the salesman (or -woman, given the context of this article) hopes will sell an item more effectively.
May we never see th
I few years ago my fiance was shopping for a new computer, which she wanted to buy from Dell. I told her that she shouldn't buy a P4 because the performance advatage was minimal and the Rumbus ram was expensive.
She bought the p4 anyway, because it came in black.
Being female, I'd say it's more like
A woman will spend $2 on a $1 item because it looks better than the $1 one.
Just look at who's buying all those expensive shoes and clothes.
Even with a more restrictive definition of technology, I would not be suprised to learn that females dominate tech purchases. I'm in the electronics industry and I see more women moving into positions like manufacturing management, parts procurement etc which involve the spending of big dollars. In fact, thinking further, more than 50% of the people I know in these roles are women. And before someone starts getting silly, none of them are butch type with "Dad" tatoos.
Even on the home front, the lady of the house often has the veto power on the purchase of that new DVD home theatre etc, and she does not get the testosterone fuelled rush from all those blinking LEDs etc.
Tom Peters came up with some interesting numbers for the female buying power in what might be considered bloke domain. Women purchase well more than 50% of car stuff: cars, tyres, car services.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Its also full of electronic gadgets from microwaves, TV, DVD, Video, Sat, ovens, washing machine/dryers, dishwasher, burglar alarms, WIFI/cable, dimmers, coffee/tea makers, breadmaker, mixers, fridge, freezer, printers, blenders, grillers, icemakers, water coolers, games consoles and air-con.
Now we geeks may think that after spending 5 hours evaluating various models of MP3 players before we make out informed decision that we are kings of technology: think again. In sheer tonnage the wife's purchasing decisions in electronics (or rather stuff that uses electricity) easily outweighs and out-costs the few gadgets we get left to decide to buy. We're just the grunt labour who have to cart this stuff home and install it and truthfully being a geek, I prefer to work out how to install something that someone else has bought as the shopping side of things can burn you out.
Nuff said as I still have to adjust declination on sat-dish as its not tracking all the arc right and still haven't replaced the soap dispenser on the dishwasher and the SCART switcher has lost audio on one socket. Labour saving ? A husband's work is never finished !
Women like to see things physically before they buy them. It's been a big thing with online shopping the past few years. Women have just recently started to outnumber men in ecommerce sales. I don't know about the stuff you buy, but I can normally find a better deal online from places like NewEgg than at the friendly, local Best Buy.
It has *everything* to do with good customer service;
:)
It's rude, ignorant, inexcusable behavior from someone who has not the slightest concept of what being a gentleman is. I blame TV
I've fired people for that sort of crap.
My advice is to take your business elsewhere.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Does that mean that 60 percent were treated better when they weren't accompanied by a man?
Theoretically, there would be three options, not two: being treated better, worse, and the same. Of course, since the other two options (better and the same) could be viewed as either neutral or better, that means that no matter how the breakdown works, the odds are STILL in favor of a woman NOT taking a man along, which directly invalidates what the article is trying to quietly suggest: that women are better off being accompanied by a man when making a tech purchase.
Some other questionable "factoids":
Meaning what, exactly? How much are they involved EXCLUSIVELY in? What are they buying? Who are they buying for?
Radio Shack's customers have shifted from 20 percent female seven years ago to 40 percent female today.
Has Radio Shack's marketing changed? Has it's product changed? Locations?
Every time you go to these places, they think women don't know anything, and they don't tell you the same features as they would when my husband goes with me.
That doesn't hold with the marketing complaint from earlier. Are they targetting something they feel will appeal more to the demographic? What, specifically, are they saying?
I don't usually even bother reading anything like this, especially studies, when they're in major news organizations. There's never any context provided to suggest the data has any validity or, worse, any meaning what-so-ever. People never question the fact that the numbers don't mean anything beyond what the writer is suggesting (typically, suggesting without any REAL evidence), so they keep doing it. CNN: The New American Tabloid.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I know you work in the back, but you must have some friend who work on the floor. Do they get paid by how many customer they avoid? Seriously though.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
My whole life is computers. I have been taking apart/breaking/tinkering with/programming computers since my father brought home a Commodore 64 all those years ago. It pisses me off to no end when some slick haired little sales moron assumes I know less about computers than my boyfriend, who doesn't even understand why he needs to keep up on the latest XP patches and wondered why his computer kept rebooting after leaving it on his school's network without patches or a firewall.
I finally got fed up years ago when, while browsing laptops, some sly salesguy looking for his commission paid more attention to the guy I was with, who was about to run over to the console games section and had no interest in computers, than me, the potential sale. He instead pointed me to the dayglo ibooks and wouldn't answer any of my questions, all while chatting it up with my friend about processors. I made it very clear to his manager that I was very ready to make a pretty large purchase at his store, but since his salespeople weren't willing to give me the time of day I'd be taking my business elsewhere. About a week later I faxed the store a copy of my invoice for a $3000 custom job, plus oodles of accessories and software. I got an apology and a ~$10 gift certificate about a month later. I gave the card to my dad and optioned not to return.
Gawd - I can't recall the last time that a Slashdot discussion has so little of value in the follow up posts.
Surely anyone in the tech business should be considering why the 50% of the population without testicles is treated so shabbily. I mean, even car dealers eventually figured that one out and ditched the "little woman" attitudes.
I take great pride in watching my wife in big box electronic stores, dealing with sales drones who obviously know significantly less than she does. And it's not because she's a super tech geek (sure, she can upgrade gear but mostly she just wants every new toy and gadget), it's because so many of those guys don't have friggin' clue and make their living by bullshitting the customer.
Think about it - if the retail electronics culture consistently insults female customers, it's likely that the same attitudes show up at the corporate level. How about we survey a few dozen female execs and see how often they've walked away from million dollar tech purchases because the sales guys treated them like Barbie.
Three Squirrels
Nay
Check out this Sample Size Calculator.
In a nutshell, for 150,000,000 you need a sample of about a 1000 people to get a representative result.
Three Squirrels
Yes, I am. When my husband and I shop together at the tech stores the clerks answer my questions to them to him. They don't ask him if he wants a large monitor to do graphics. When we went to the Apple store the clerks came over to ask if he needed help and ignored me. It is the same at car dealerships to and unfortunately you can't buy cars online like you can computers and electronics.
What is it about people and degrees?
When people make comments about people with high degrees knowing more or being smarting I think I live in a different world.
Tafe: Practical.
Bachelor: General overall knowledge in a specific field.
Masters: Detailed knowledge in a specilised field.
Phd: Research knowledge in a single topic/idea.
Having a higher education doesn't mean you know more or are smarter it just confirms that you had the potental.
If you don't agree with me then why do they have Honarary Docterates?
Also at each level you become more specialised which is great if that area is needed but it isn't transferable to another "universe of discourse".
I guess I have a somewhat jaded view since my Grandfather wrote the coricumem for a University and all my uncles and Aunties on my Fathers side have multiple letters after their names and they are all screwed up and see schrinks at least once a month.
Summing up:
*The smater you are the higher you can get in the educational game.[1]
*Being higher in the educational game doesn't MAKE you smarter.[1]
[1] For thoes of you who did logic at Uni this is also known as "The Fallacy of the Consequent" http://www.fallacyfiles.org/commcond.html
There has been a lot of discussion of women being badly treated in electronic stores.
As a count-point, I would like to say this:
As a man, I want to thank each and every female sales-clerk at my local florists who has ever helped me pick out some nice flowers. Botany and bouquet making is a subject I know nothing about and if it wasn't for the nice and helpful sales-clerk that recognized me as a stereotipical ignorant male, I would be in a lot more trouble right now.
Well, pardon the troll remark. As a AC post, it came across that way. I don't post AC and I have little respect for those who do.
:)
:) - mind you, I grew up under "old style" courtesy, and I have my disagreements with some of it's tenants, too. I don't agree with everything Heinlein said, either. I make up my own mind.
:) Just remember: You asked ;) I can't teach you *how* to be a "gentleman"; I can only tell you what I think one should be, and why. There's an important lesson in that.
:) This topic can, and has been debated to death. That's why I suggested you look into it on your own. Form your own opinions. Become a freethinker. It's an important step.
:) -but- the path is the important part, not the destination.
There is no *solid* definition. However, I'll offer a few thoughts:
Treat *everyone* as equals; even (and especially) your enemies.
Be firm in your beliefs, easy in your convictions, merciless to those who show no mercy to others, and merciful to those trapped within situations they don't control.
Courtesy to others, at all times; even when insulted. Yet stand up for insults against others, up to and including the point of kicking ass
Share always the best knowledge or wisdom you have; if shown you are wrong, concede gracefully. If you think you're right, fight for your convictions.
Always buy the first drink. If you can't, buy the second.
Learn all you can, share more.
Hold no grudges, given that they mend their ways. If they don't, show no mercy. When attacked, respond at or below the level offered.
Those who are helpless don't deserve pity; they deserve help. Give it to them, if they will accept it. If not, treat them with polite courtesy despite their failings.
Those who would exploit others deserve mercy, but only after you've defeated them, and only if they're willing to accept it. If they're not willing, they probably deserve death.
Judgement: I hear a lot of crap about "Who are you to judge -topic-person-situation-". This is sheer bullshit. We each and all make judgements all our lives, often from second to second. It's why *insert deity here* gave us the capability. OIOW, it's why we developed intelligence in the first place.
Feel free to judge. Just try to judge wisely. If you fail, you fail. It happens. Humans are faulty. Try, or try not. (God? Bog? Who? Giving the Ultimate Judgement to God, the Authorities, or whomever is passing the buck. You're the person on the spot. Deal with it. )
The Best Rule, tho, is probably the Golden One. Treat others how you would want to be treated - with a caveat - if you were in their situation.
There is no black and white definition. I do, however, think that Heinlein came the closest. Nevermind those "old style" (wtf that is) definitions.
I will say this, tho. I've met *very few* women in the last 35+ years who *did not* like having doors opened for them; I've also met few men who don't appreciate it. Those I've met who did, generally, IMO, have some sort of internal conflict with themselves. This attitude rarely steers me wrong; a simple "Thank You" from a stranger for a simple act of kindness is more precious than a thousand thank you's from any charity donation.
Read into it what you will. You have to find your own path. The important thing to remember is that you have the ability to make your own choices. It can steer you wrong, but if I read you right, you're on a good path already.
If a lot of this seems contradictory, it's because human beings are so. This is merely advice freely given for the asking. It has no more value than you read into it. *What* you read into it, and how you act on it, is your responsibility alone.
I could add a lot more, but it's late and I have to sleep.
SB
(Who is not a perfect gentleman, and who knows that striving to be one can lead me down the wrong path. I guess that's why I hate working retail sales so much
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
(I'm gonna get flamed, but it's late, I'm cranky, and a little venting of one's spleen can be therapeutic)
Can't agree with all of what you had to say, but your reference to the constant propaganda against men that passes as "advertising" is spot on.
I wish I could be trusted to give cold medicine to my kids or feed them dinner, but according to the message I get from the media I'm just a stupid man that should know better than to try to do a Woman's job.
Give this a try, next time you see an ad on TV, mentally switch the gender of the subject from male to female. Funny how easily and quickly the word "sexist" springs to mind....
My boyfriend got me a nice new soundcard for my birthday, and I gave him mass lovings for it. (But I got it to work with my Linux. A girl's gotta have her pride.)
Since I'm picky about my electronics and gift certificates are rather impersonal coming from my girlfriend and immediate family, I use the opportunity to get things I wouldn't normally buy for myself, like clothes. Yeah, I know a lot of people here probably don't care about what they wear, but it's nice to get a few new items a couple times a year to keep the wardrobe up to date. Besides, they have better fashion sense than I do.
At the risk of sounding offensive, I might point out that a lot of your responses are ludicrously condescending to a person who's simply making a couple of assumptions based on the vast majority of their customer base, male or female. I work in a repair center at a major retail electronics business (poke through my posts if you really care which one), and while I wouldn't say that it qualifies me as any sort of expert, it does pay decently enough for a crappy college town to keep me from needing student loans. Please understand that I am not condescending to women, but I do dumb things down. Guess what, I dumb things down for men, too, because about 95% of the populace doesn't care about tech enough to bother learning. It just isn't a passion in their life like it is to a lot of /. folk. That said:
In sales, the goal is to phrase any question as an open-ended one, discouraging a "yes" or "no" answer and encouraging a conversation. It helps the sales person learn a bit about you (which helps them make a recommendation to their average customer. You are obviously not their average customer, but they have no way of knowing either way).
Consider your responses, and the likely questions posed to you by the salesperson.
"No I do not need a large LCD to draw pictures on, I need it to see physics simulations."
Coming right out and asking, "why do you want this?" is an offensive statement to a person of either gender, so any salesperson in this situation is going to ask about a function used by the majority of the public. Drawing pictures or editing pictures or photographs is something almost any customer probably uses their computer for at least some of the time. If you do, that salesperson can ask about other things you do, and it opens up the conversation. If you don't (you obviously use it for physics simulations) it tells the employee other things about you (you know your shit, and on the outside chance that you're someone looking for a computer but who only cares about visualizing physics sims and NOT the hardware itself, they have a good idea of the sort of hardware you'd need). This is not an attempt to patronize you. Now, a person phrasing it with a patronizing tone to their voice, definitely, but almost any salesperson, knowledgeable or no, is going to ask you a similar question.
No I don't need a pop-up blocker, I use Linux and OSX, I out grew Windows when it was on version 3.11
This is a bit more off-the-wall. Again, laws of statisitics show that somewhere over 90% of the computer-using populace is running Windows, most of them likely IE. A pop-up blocker might be a wortwhile thing to those people, assuming they didn't already use one of the 90-jillion freeware products that do the same. This is a bit more into sleazy add-on territory IMHO, since it wouldn't be something any decent salesperson would point you toward unless your conversation steered toward web browsing or internet services, or something of the sort. Since a lot of stores nowadays seem to push ISPs as one of their products (and a lot of those pricier ISPs use pop-up blocking as one of their "premium" services that set them apart), it might just be a really clumsy attempt to segue into them selling you an ISP. I highly doubt you actually say, to their face, "I use Linux and OSX; I outgrew Windows when it was on 3.11", I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, because getting extra crap pushed on you is irritating. If you do, I might ask why you would direct such hostility toward a likely non-commissioned salesperson who is required to offer such services to customers in order to retain his or her job.
No I don't need your over priced warrenty, if it breaks I'll fix it myself.
I would crack up if you made this response to a person regarding anything other than maybe a television, CRT monitor, or stereo amp (the things easily repaired with a soldering iron and a little troubleshooting). I would hope to god that you weren't buying a retai
I have a really cool female coworker. This is obviously not in the U.S. because if it were, there would be law suits. She plays the game. She knows how to make people listen and she's really good at getting what she wants.
This morning, the manager annouced that there will be a salary review coming up shortly. Later in the day, she pops into the office and says "So who do I have to blow to get a good raise?", when I responded that "The guy's wife might get upset about that method of negotiation", her reply was "Well I'll give her a lick too if it'll get me enough to buy a new TV".
The moral isn't that she's actually willing to do those things, it just goes to show that she's willing to play the same game the guys play by making jokes and taking it a little less seriously. In the mean time, she's a highly talented junior engineer within the organization who is working her way up the ladder.
To the women reading this in the states, keep in mind that she's not being any different than the other female workers I meet daily. Women here are much more liberal and are treated much more equal than in the U.S. simply because they have accepted that they are equal to or better than men and act that way. My past experience in the U.S. (I am an American) is that women prefer to convince themselves that they are being made victims by men. The women here prefer to just be like everyone else and the men treat them as equals because of it.
I love this country, Europe is just much more liberal than the U.S. on every level. They know when to be conservative, but they also know when to play.