Gift Basket Business Blog

What Women Want: Marketing to Women

March 19th, 2006 at 11:56am Lorie Obernauer

Do you remember the movie, What Women Want: Mel Gibson trying on panty hose and lipstick in hopes of figuring out how to market products to women. There’s a better way to get a handle on this: learn from the experts!

Recently, two trade magazines, Gourmet Retailer, February, 2006, and Gift Basket Review, March, 2006, included articles about marketing to women. Since women influence a major portion of household spending as well as a large part of corporate spending, this is an important topic for gift basket business owners who are looking for ways to increase business.

Some of the most interesting points from these two articles:

• As buyers, women pay attention to the interests, preferences and lifestyle of the person who will receive the gift. This means it would be worth your while to have some merchandise that lets you add a “theme” to your baskets (eg. oven mitts and utensils to create a basket for a person who loves to cook; gardening gloves and packages of seeds for the gardener, etc)
• As buyers, women want to be knowledgable about their purchases and feel like they are making informed, good decisions. Be sure you and your staff are ready to answer questions about the products that you’re selling (eg. ingredients, portions, shelf life) as well as services you provide (eg. delivery options, credit card procedures, etc).
• Finally, women want to feel that they have an empathetic relationship with the salesperson they work with. If a buyer feels that the saleperson understands the importance of the occasion or is especially helpful regarding concerns about product choices, timely delivery,or costs, this will go a long way to building a loyal customer who will come back again.

Whether selling to individual consumers who may be shopping for a birthday gift, or to a corporate contact who is ordering for the company’s holiday gift giving program, if a woman is ordering, there may be ways to insure that she’ll be satisfied and come back again.

Entry Filed under: Business Tips