Why We Buy (12 page)

In each case, what's happening seems clear: When two women shop together, they talk, advise, suggest and consult to their hearts' content, hence the long time in the store; with the kids, she's partly consumed with herding them along and keeping them entertained; alone, she makes efficient use of her time. But with him—well, he makes it plain that he's bored and antsy and liable at any moment to go off and sit in the car and listen to the radio or stand outside and watch girls. So the woman's comfort level plummets when he's by her side; she spends the entire trip feeling anxious and rushed. If he can somehow be occupied, though, she'll be a happier, more relaxed shopper. And she'll spend more, both time and money. There are two main strategies for coping with the presence of men in places where serious shopping is being done.

The first one is passive restraint, which is not to say handcuffs. Stores that sell mainly to women should all be figuring out some way to engage the interest of men. If I owned Chico's or Victoria's Secret, I'd have a place where a woman could check her husband like a coat. There already exists a traditional space where men have always felt comfortable waiting around—it's called the barbershop. Instead of some ratty old chairs and back issues of
Playboy
and
Boxing Illustrated,
maybe there could be comfortable seats facing a big-screen TV tuned to ESPN, or the cable channel that runs the bass-fishing program. Even something that simple would go a long way toward relieving wifely anxiety, but it's possible to imagine more:
Sports Illustrated
in-store programming, for instance—a documentary on the making of the swimsuit issue, perhaps—or highlights of last weekend's NFL action.

If I were opening a brand-new store where women could shop comfortably, I'd find a location right next to an emporium devoted to male desire—a computer store, for instance, or a car-parts supply house, somewhere he could happily kill half an hour. Likewise, if I were
opening a computer software store, I'd put it next to a women's clothing shop and guarantee myself hordes of grateful male browsers.

But you could also try to sell to your captive audience. A women's clothing store could prepare a video catalog designed especially for men buying gifts—items like scarves or robes rather than shoes or trousers. Gift certificates would sell easily there; he already knows that she likes the store. Victoria's Secret could really go to town with a video catalog for men. They could even stage a little fashion show.

The only precaution you'd need to take is in where to place such a section. You want customers to be able to find it easily, but you don't want it so near the entrance that the gaze of window shoppers falls on six lumpy guys in windbreakers slumped in Barcaloungers watching TV.

The second, and ultimately more satisfying, strategy would be to find a way to actually get the man involved in shopping. Not the easiest thing to do in certain categories, but not impossible either.

We were doing a study for Pfaltzgraff, the dinnerware maker and retailer. Their typical customer will fall in love with one particular pattern and collect the entire set—-many, many pieces, everything from dinner plates and coffee cups to a mustard pot, serving platter and napkin rings. It is very time-consuming to shop the store, especially when you figure in how long it takes to ring the items up and wrap them so that they don't break. Just the kind of situation designed to drive most men nuts. But the typical sale at Pfaltzgraff outlet stores can run into the hundreds of dollars, all the more reason to find a way to get men involved.

As we watched the videotape, we noticed that for some unknown reason men were tending to wander over toward the glassware section of the store. They were steering clear of the gravy boats and the spoon rests and drifting among the tumblers and wineglasses. At one point we saw two guys meander over to the beer glasses, where one of them picked one up and with the other hand grabbed an imaginary beer tap, pulled it and tilted the glass as if to fill it. And I thought, well, of course—when company's over for dinner and the woman's cooking in the kitchen, what does the man do? He makes drinks. That's his socially acceptable role. And so he's interested in all the accoutrements, all the
tools of the bartending trade—every different type of glass and what it's for, and the corkscrew and ice tongs and knives and shakers. They're being guys about it.

My first thought was that the stores should put in fake beer taps, like props, for men to play with. We ended up advising them to pull together all the glassware into a barware section and to put up on the wall some big graphic, like a photo of a man pulling a beer or making some martinis in a nice chrome shaker. Something so that men would walk in and see that there was a section meant for them, somewhere they could shop. All the bottle openers in the different patterns, say, would be stocked there, too. And because men prefer to get their information from reading, the store could put up a chart showing what type of glass is used for what—the big balloons and the long stems and the flutes and the rocks glasses and steins.

And by doing all that, you could take the man—who had been seen as a drag on business and an inconvenience to the primary shopper—and turn him into a customer himself. Or at least an interested bystander.

We did a study for Thomasville, the furniture maker, and thought that there, too, getting the man more involved would make it easier to sell such big-ticket items. The solution was simple: Create graphic devices, like displays and posters, showing the steps that go into making the furniture, and use visuals, like cross-sections and exploded views, to prove that in addition to looking good, the pieces were well made. Emphasizing construction would do a lot toward overcoming male resistance to the cost of new furniture, but the graphics would also give men something to study while their wives examined upholstery and styling.

One product for which men consistently outshop women is beer. And that's in every type of setting—supermarket or convenience store, men buy the beer. (They also buy the junk food, the chips and pretzels and nuts and other entertainment food.) So we advised a supermarket client to hold a beer-tasting every Saturday at three p.m., right there in the beer aisle. They could feature some microbrew or a new beer from one of the major brewers, it didn't matter. The tastings would probably help sell beer, but even that wasn't the point. It would be worth it
just because it would bring more men into the store. And it would help transform the supermarket into a more male-oriented place.

But an experiment run by Envirosell Brazil for Brahma, the country's leading beer brand, teaches a different lesson. In the experiment, they focused on making the beer section more female-friendly on the premise that women buy beer for someone other than just themselves. They took out all the buxom babe stand-ups (what's the exact connection between suds and cleavage anyway?) and put up graphics of a family meal with adult men and women drinking beer. Sales went up 20 percent overnight. Here in the USA, women make up a tiny segment of beer-buying patronage, but when they do buy it, they tend to buy beer in larger quantities. Thus, while the guy is more likely to buy a six-pack, the woman is more likely to buy the twelve. Conclusion: She's buying for the party, the guy is buying for the party of one.

Smart retailers should pay attention. All aspects of business are going to have to anticipate how men's and women's social roles are changing, and the future is going to belong to whoever gets there first. A good general rule: Take any category where women now predominate and figure out how to make it appealing to men without alienating women.

Look, for instance, at what's happened to the American kitchen over the past decade or so. Once upon a time Mom did all the grocery shopping and all the cooking. Now Mom probably works as much as Dad. As a result, men also have to know how to cook, clean and do laundry—it's gone from being cute to being necessary.

Is it a coincidence that as that change took place, kitchen appliances have become so butch? Once upon a time you chose from avocado and golden harvest when selecting a refrigerator or a stove. Now the trendiest stoves are industrial-strength six-burner numbers with open gas grills, and the refrigerators are huge, featureless boxes of stainless steel, aluminum and glass. If you go into a fancy kitchenware store like Williams-Sonoma you'll see that a popular gadget is the little blowtorch used for crystallizing the top of crème brûlée. Have Americans just now fallen in love with preparing elaborate, fatty French desserts? Or does
cooking just seem more appealing to men when it involves firing up your own personal flamethrower?

(Similarly, as women stay single longer and sometimes become single more than once, the old-fashioned, boys-only hardware store is being killed off. Our Ace Hardware and True Value hardware clients have done a great job transforming their businesses to become places where female homeowners can become tool-happy do-it-yourselfers in a nurturing, non-gender-specific environment. One of the simpler ways that transformation happens is by hiring more female staff.)

Look at how microwave ovens are sold—the most prominent feature on the description sheet is the wattage. Likewise, when we interviewed men shopping for vacuum cleaners and asked which feature was most important, their (predictable) answer was: “Suck.” Read:
power.
As a result, vacuum makers now boast amperage. In both cases, home appliances have gotten more macho as men have gotten less so. They seem determined to meet somewhere in the middle.

Even washday miracles and other household products are being reimagined with men in mind. I can't say for sure how Georgia-Pacific and Procter & Gamble came to their decisions, but why else would paper towels be called Brawny or laundry detergent be called Bold, except to make themselves respectable items for men to bring to the checkout? How many women wish they had Hefty bags? Now: how many men? The manliest monikers used to go on cars; now they go on suds. The most successful soap introduction of the '90s wasn't anything frilly or lavender. It was Lever 2000, a name that would also sound right on a computer or a new line of power tools. I'd drive a Lever 2000 any day.

Look beyond shopping to the most elemental expressions of contemporary male desire—just think of the difference between Marilyn Monroe and Angelina Jolie. Angie's biceps are probably bigger than Frank Sinatra's and Bobby Kennedy's combined. She's downright muscle-bound and hipless compared to the pinups of three decades ago.

Men have always bought their own suits and shoes, but women, traditionally, shopped for everything in between, especially men's socks and underwear. Now, though, that's changing—men are more involved in their clothing, and women have enough to do without
buying boxer shorts. In Target's menswear department, you'll still sometimes find a female-male ratio of 2:1 or even 3:1. But in expensive apparel stores, among more affluent men, males shopping for menswear now—finally—outnumber females. We caught a signal moment in the life of the modern American male on videotape. A man was browsing thoughtfully at an underwear display when he suddenly reached around, grabbed a handful of his waistband, pulled it out and craned his neck so he could learn—finally!—what size shorts he wears. Try to imagine a woman who doesn't know her underwear size. Impossible. Someday soon, we can all hope, every man will know his.

(Conversely, I am told that women frequently won't buy lingerie without trying it on—over their own, I am assured. I don't know if I'll live long enough to ever see a man take a package of Fruit of the Looms into a fitting room.)

As women stop buying men's underwear, will men begin buying women's? I met a jeweler who told me, “A lot of my business is with men trying to buy their way back inside the house.” Many a husband or beau would choose fancy lingerie or jewelry at gift times, but the stores that sell it, and the merchandise itself, make it daunting. If he can't remember his own size, how can he remember hers, especially when she has bra and underpants to think about, not to mention robe, nightgown etc. And how can he be sure he's buying the ring or necklace she wants, in a color that suits her? We frequently see men tentatively enter these lairs of femininity, cast anxious glances around, maybe study an item or two, and then flee in fear and uncertainty. Sales clerks have to be trained to lure these men in like the skittish beasts they are. Making a personal shopper available for heavy-duty hand-holding isn't a bad idea, especially considering the costliness of jewelry or even lingerie.

There also must be a way to simplify apparel sizes to make such cross-buying possible. Perhaps the easiest solution would be for women to register their sizes at clothing stores of their liking, then just point their men in the right direction. The first store that tries this is going to benefit from lots of latent desire among men to buy frilly underthings. Then again, maybe they don't want to be seen walking out the door with a pink shopping bag.

Another gender-related problem that clothing retailers have to solve is this: How do you subtly tell shoppers where the men's and women's apparel is in a store that sells both? Not so long ago, it was unthinkable that men's and women's clothing would be sold side by side, from the same site. That wall was knocked down in the '60s, but some of the bugs still need to be worked out. The cuing now being used, for instance, even in dual-gender pioneers such as the Gap and J.Crew, isn't really working, as you can tell when you suddenly realize that you spent ten minutes browsing through shoes, sweaters or jeans meant for the other sex.

Go into any woman's closet and you'll find something that was made for a man. A jean jacket, a baggy sweater, a T-shirt—my significant other raids my closet and drawers freely. No threat whatsoever to her sexuality. I can't say the same for myself.