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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."
Yeah, but those electronics usually involve the settings: Slow, Medium, and Fast! :D
Men earn money, women spend it.
If I didn't have a woman to remind me, I wouldn't even remember to buy food!
Men use duct tape, thus extending the life of certain pieces of equipment that thus don't require replacing...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I'm sure that there must be SOME link between the headline and the article... but I'm buggered if I can see what it is.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
that tells me that the men are finding the better deals.
If you have not done so yet, get a woman in your product design team.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Dumbass. Then again, her husband bought the Jaguar upgrade. . . for his WinXP laptop. . .
You are not the customer.
Tech salespeople would rather sell to a man than a woman because women don't go all glassy eyed and impressionable around bright, shiny things.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
"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!
And you sold those things to them, right?
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.
Nearly three-quarters of women surveyed by the industry group complained about being ignored, patronized or offended by sales people when shopping for electronics.
At least the sales staff a Fry's Electronics don't discriminate; they'll ignore you reguardless of your gender :)
we DO spend more time shopping and finding sales [/gross generalization]... and buying technology isn't like buying cars... it's not like there's a lot of haggling going on, so I'd think it's fair to say they'd get the same bang for their buck. I don't walk out of best buy feeling cheated, although I have experienced the "oh, you're a girl, you don't know what it MEANS when I say 4.2 GHz or DDR or anything FANCY like that... here let me show you the pretty PURPLE computer..." phenomenon. Trick is... ignore the sales-people, or bring a male for decoy-work.
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.
As a consequence Lego will now ditch the silly little colored blocks and design more Adult like products. Inflatable dolls for dad and longer more sturdy colored artifacts for mom.
Help fight continental drift.
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
"Nearly three-quarters of women surveyed by the industry group complained about being ignored, patronized or offended by sales people when shopping for electronics."
Probably three-quarters of men would complain about the same thing.
"40 percent of women surveyed responded that they were treated better when accompanied by a man."
Does that mean that 60 percent were treated better when they weren't accompanied by a man?
sig's not here
Well isn't that some sad, stereotyped shit(?) According to the article, women complained about being patronized in tech stores. But what the hell kind of image of women do the tech manufacturers have?
1. "Well, these 'women' are always in the kitchen, right?!"
2. "True dat, so why not refit our gadgets so they match kitchen cabinets and stuff!"
3. "We've got it! Profit!"
What's the word I'm looking for
668.5
I've just had a quick scan through the initial (100 or so) responses to this story. It seems there is little variation between the responses; most of them fall into one of the following categories:
None of these responses really makes any serious attempt to address the issues behind the story. Instead, they appear to regard the story as an attack on their technical savvy, and by association an attack on their manliness. This may explain why so many responses proceed to trash either the figures quoted, or women themselves. Is it any wonder why so many men on /. complain about not getting laid?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
She probably was wondering what the hell this "Rumbus RAM" was, since the box listed "Rambus RAM" and concluded tahat you didn't have the foggiest clue what you were talking about :)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
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.
Is that I am more of a tech nerd than 95% of the guys I know, and every time I walk into a computer store, jiffy lube, or hardware store, the people there treat me like a slobbering 2 year old.
I swear this conversation happened about 3 weeks ago:
[sales rep-tile] "Can I help you?"
[me] "Nah, I'm just looking for a network card."
[sales rep-tile] "This is a good one, and we can put it in for you."
[me] "Oh, I'll just put it in myself."
[sales rep-tile] "Now sweetheart that's very complicated, are you sure you should try that?"
Sometimes it's difficult to refrain from telling them to kiss my ass.
- Kate
"DNA is life. The rest is just translation."
That's why you have to train them: I suggest the electronic collar with remote.
Relax! It's a joke...
Put identity in the browser.
Anything that is more than twice as powerful as what you could get for the same money three years ago. Alternatively, anything that costs less than half what it did three years ago.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
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.
The stereotypes may be plain wrong, but still take a while to change.
That's if they're wrong. Exceptions don't disprove stereotypes -- they are noteworthy because they are exceptional.
Holy moly is this place awfully sexist or what?
Don't get me wrong. I have a sense of humour, and I enjoy jokes about the stereotypes that are associated with men AND women, but I'm suprised at how unsympathetic most people posting here are.
When my girlfriend goes out and gets treated poorly at a computer or electronics store, it pisses both of us off. It's totally unreasonable. We both make a living as programmers, but she's the one with the Master's degree in CS, while I have a lowly Bachelor's. There's no reason to treat us differently. She knows as much as I do. (More, obviously, given our educational differences.)
I've never really understood how people can put up with widespread sexism. These women are our wives, daughters, mothers and sisters. When they get treated poorly, I get angry about it. Don't any of you care that if/when you get a girlfriend, some retarded drone that works a low-paying retail job in some warehouse store thinks that he's so much better than the person that you've decided is a worthwhile human being that you like to spend time with that he's going to insult her intelligence?
C'mon. Stop with the 'go make me a sammich, beyotch!' jokes. They're an insult to men and women alike.
Statistics show that 94.52% of all surveys that do not give details on sample size and sampling methods are bogus. Trust me.
Women are the more substantive consumers over man. Who do you think they're buying the "tech" for?
A man wouldn't refrain.
There's your problem.
(Of course, if you want to be extra manly, pop 'em one in the jaw for insulting a lady. It is, after all, the chivalrous course of action in when faced with such discourtesy.)
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig
Here is a clue, I have a Master's in Computational Physics and I spend a lot on tech gadgets and computers. Imagine that a 42 year old, little old lady who does something besides buy gadgets for her husband.
I have been so patronized in tech stores I do almost all my tech shopping online now.
"No I do not need a large LCD to draw pictures on, I need it to see physics simulations."
"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"
"No I don't need your over priced warrenty, if it breaks I'll fix it myself."
If it is true that women do most of the spending on tech stuff, then I expect like me they are doing most of it online and these patronizing boys will before too long all be unemployeed.
At issue here is that there are a large group of people that on occasion get at best dismissed and at worst harassed when buying tech products.
Ask me how many times a sales guy can't look me in the eye cause my tits are too distracting, or how many times my product choices are second guessed simply cause I'm wearing a skirt, and I then have to go and recite all the specs of the product from memory IN ADDITION to the competing products to prove that believe it or not, I'm not an impulse tech shopper and fully research and plan all of my purchases. (actually, I enjoy that part, cause the sales 'dudes' then shut up fast and realize they've been outclassed, hopefully learning it's bad sales strategy to have any preconceptions of their customers).
Also fortunate in this sense, bricks and mortars RARELY have the best prices and online stores have yet to discriminate in the least when I purchase all the tech products for my document imaging business and my personal armory of gadgets.
Motivational quote for the day: Try thinking of women as more than brainless bank account draining bimbos and maybe you'll find one that's not.
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
I don't know about your house, but at mine, the woman buys all the gifts. Christmas, birthday, weddings, etc. And since I'm a geek, a lot of my friends are geeks, too. So tech stuff is a good bet when it comes to gifts. I imagine that women do BUY more tech, but I would like to see a survey on who USES more tech!
--If you don't test it, it won't work. Guaranteed.
I think of my own reasoning for buying videogames. I bought the console so I could play the games. Now I have to buy many games to justify spending the money on the console. In some cases, I've bought the games before I had the console. I also have to buy DVDs to justify spending money on multimedia equipment.
That probably gets women as mystified as I was when a female friend said that I could/should buy a pair of shoes if I bought a few less DVDs. Me: But I've got shoes. I'm wearing them.
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
CEA study? I'm sure this analysis was unbiased and only considered opinions from appropriate participants. Plus, kdkgjdjig
Whoops, sorry, I got an orgasm while washing my hair.
The previous posters will not have any problem keeping a woman entertained.... although should they continously buy gifts that meet the afore mentioned speed settings... they may not keep them long.
I'd say 100% of customers (male and female) at Fry's Electronics would report at least one of those responses from sales people.
Hmm, and I've had rude sales people at Radio Shack, Circuit City, Best Buy, and pretty much all of em. I'm sure that sales people are more likely to be patronizing to a woman buying technology - but I think the 75% mistreatment number is a bit of misleading hyperbole because it fails to account for the fact that low level retail sales is generally carried out by surly teens who hate their job.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
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
It's clear that more or less, you're an idiot. A sexist one at that. It would take too long to respond to the massive amount of drivel that you clearly spent a lot of time typing, but I will correct one particular point.
'Materialism' is a desire to have physical things - materials. 'Material' is derived from the latin 'materialis' (and the french 'materia') meaning 'stuff'. 'Mater' means 'mother'.
That's the problem with people like you. You never actually do your research, and are content to merely blather on mindlessly with no idea of what's actually going on.
I'll leave you and your misogeny alone now.
It's possible to sell someone AOL? I thought it was something you just noticed you had one day like Herpes.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
// begin obvious
// end obvious
// begin disclaimer
// end disclaimer
// begin snickering
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who in here has a significant other?
no, no, I know that _some_ slashdotters have mates.
*snicker
(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....
In my experience, the normals ask geeks for tech buying advice to reach out to geeks, not to get help. Most people are so intimidated by tech that when they finally feel confident enough to bring new gear into their lives, it's a breakthrough. So when they talk to a geek about it, they're trying to get social acceptance in what they think are the geek's own terms. "Should I get X?" really means "do you like me now that I like X?". Geeks typically don't decode short sentences, especially when the immediate meaning is simple among geeks. So we talk about the tech, when the normals are really talking about the people. Combine that with the common geek insecurity when talking about people, and it's no wonder these conversations go nowhere.
--
make install -not war
"Yeah, I hate complicated stuff. Finishing up my master's in EE damn near killed me, and you wouldn't believe how complicated THAT got. Of course, now I can get a real job that doesn't involve wearing a nametag."
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I've been a long time (like over a year+) slashdot lurker, and this topic has so moved me to create an account and post.
I am a female, I have a network of four linux-loving computers, and comparatively, my boyfriend (bless his little lovely heart)... is largely computer illiterate. But I really need him at times to be taken seriously, both at stores and with phone tech support. I order all my computer parts online now. The one recent purchase I've made at a store, I became very hostile with the salesman at Best Buy who was treating me like a child, despite my repeated firm protestations of "I know exactly what I'm looking for, please back off already." He finally backed off only when my bf who had been in the game section turned the corner and asked, "Hon, have you found what you were looking for yet?" The attitude women reported in the article is very much obvious with tech support too. I've had harrowing experiences with tech support over a lemon laptop. Ironically, in all the months it took that to be straightened out, the only time I was taken seriously was by a woman tech support person (although a few years back I had a dead sound card, told the male tech support person exactly the problem and how I arrived at it, and he simply said, "I love people like you, we'll send the replacement out today"). Now, even when dealing with tech support I make my bf take the phone and he tells them what I say, because they tend to take him more seriously than me saying the exact same thing. Having me sitting next to him relaying my commentary rather than being on the phone myself makes that significant of a difference. And I resent it. I know as geeks we all hate dealing with tech support and pushy electronics store people... let me tell you, it's a thousand times worse and more insulting when you are a female and they treat you like a baby because of it. After dedicating so many years of my life to developing my computer skills, that treatment infuriates me. I seriously like to live by the philosophy that there is more difference within the sexes than between them. Unfortunately, that view is not held by most of the world... particularly men when it comes to women in technology.
I read slashdot. I care about Linux and SCO issues. I build my own computers, link my PDA to the wireless network I've set up in my house, and argue kernels with men.
I DON'T watch anime, play Counterstrike, download pr0n, or try to out-class my fellow geeks by way of computing power or unnecessary bandwidth. These tend to be, though not always, hobbies of male geeks. I DO like jewelry, shopping for shoes, romance, clothes, cooking, chatting, and cute guys. Because of these traits, many people underestimate my technical knowledge.
One nice thing about the liberation of women is that I can appreciate technology without trying to be your typical male geek. I can go try on sixteen pairs of shoes, then come home and program my heart out.
I don't see that in many of these replies. What I see is that because we like to buy things other than technology, or because we like to use technology as a means to socialize or have fun (as with cell phones), we can't possibly be as tech-savvy as you slashdotters assume YOU are. I can see the brain waves now. "Oh, these women! They must be buying little TVs for their kitchen, pink vibrators, presents for their geeky boyfriends, or electronic beepy collars for their fuzzy kittens!" Why? Why can't you accept that we see technology just as you do? That we're out there looking for the newest video card or USB hub?
Watch out, guys, the boundaries of geekdom are expanding. Women are discovering the utter coolness of technology. We can afford it. We can buy it for ourselves. And we can understand how to use it.
Honestly, I'm embarassed. I thought the slashdot community was more enlightened than this.