Do Women View The Web Different Than Men?, Not specialty sites like cosmetics, but average sites. Options

[dragonlady7]

I've also found that women don't just want to be talked at- they want to have a dialogue, they want to be able to share their specific situation to make sure what they are getting is indeed right for them. I think that's one of the reasons product reviews help increase conversion.

Oh absolutely. As a shopper, I don't think of myself as typical in any way-- even though, as the Internet has shown me in recent years, there are hundreds of people with my exact needs out there. What the Internet has done is put me in touch with those others, and now we all swap our tales of precisely how products work for us.

In many cases this is needed. A lot of people, like me, aren't a standard size or shape, for example, so when I'm shopping for clothes, I'm going to ask other girls who, like me, aren't exactly shaped like the mannequin, what they think of the product. Let's just say I have... atypical porportions, to be needlessly coy [I'm talking about brassieres. My size uses the whole dang alphabet.]. Most designers aren't designing with me in mind. Usually their products, when scaled up to my size, have design flaws. Reading the product description for the mannequin-sized garment is not really going to give me any idea of whether it's actually going to be up to the task, when scaled up to my size, of actually performing its needed function. So I want to hear from another customer of approximately my atypical dimensions, and find out what her experience was.

I have in the back of my head an idea to make a website that sells this particular sort of garment, and sells it properly-- and I have been mulling over how to achieve this. Most websites that sell said garments do not have this kind of feature, because it's nigh-impossible to get the sheer quantity of customer reviews you'll need for this kind of product-- especially as new lines are released all the time.

www.sockdreams.com is a perfect example of a site that is absolutely perfect, in my opinion. Is it because I'm a woman that I feel this way? She tells you right out if there are flaws with the product! She has testers of different sizes who try out the product and tell you what they think. They even have a blog, which she's recruited different testers to review products for. So I can read the descriptions and, knowing my own size, know that these thigh-highs will fit me, but those kneesocks won't go higher than my knee, and these may be too tight around my calves, and those will probably get runs when I look at them, etc. I have spent ridiculous amounts of money here, and I've gotten products I was unhappy with and just not bothered to return them because she'd been so honest about the flaws and I'd gambled that they wouldn't be too bad. She's had nothing but profit off me, and I don't begrudge her a cent of it. Heck, one product I bought didn't have a product photo associated with it yet, so I sent her a picture of myself in it, along with a review of the product, and she wound up using both on the product page!

I just don't think it would be possible to do the same with a product more complex than socks.

And I don't know how a typical male shopper would feel about such a site. Would they think this is 'perfect' the way I do? How could you not love such specific product reviews?

But I think male shoppers generally aren't as picky about the fit of their clothing-- I know my boyfriend has very atypical dimensions as well, but for the most part, if it says it's his size, it'll fit him, so he doesn't really care.

[redsonia!]

Thanks for pinning the thread, Ian! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/clapping.gif)

[redsonia!]

The Lightbulb moment when I sort of started to figure it out is actually a funny story. Remind me to blog about it some day once I find a few more spare moments.

Randy, I'd love to hear this funny story. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/secret.gif) When you have time.

[redsonia!]

Would now be a good time, Randy? I'd love to hear your story.

[Randy]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/hysterical.gif) Oh ye of looooooooooong memory...

Getting ready to head away from the computer for the night, but if things don't get too crazy early tomorrow I'll try to at least find the time to give the short version.

[redsonia!]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/giggle.gif) I'm kinda like an elephant - I never forget!

[Alex S]

I saw an article on the BBC tech page the other day about women 18-24 being the largest demographic utilizing the web in the UK (if I understood it right). It got me to thinking that maybe I'm overlooking something here in my copywriting.

This isn't necessarily a copy issue, but I heard that women have a lower tolerance for high shipping charges. They don't want to be surprised when they hit the chekcout page with an extra $8.00 charge.

[Randy]

Welcome Alex ! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hi.gif)

That whoosh you heard was my head spinning round when I opened this page to see DL7 posting again. Til I figured out it was an older thread brought back to life. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol.gif) Not that there's anything wrong with that since this is a goodie for being an oldie, and more folks could probably benefit from considering some of the points it raised.

As to the shipping thing, I'd say there's some truth in the idea based upon some of the "out there" conversion testing I've done. It's very hard to quantify or even explain though.

What I found in the past tests I've run on the subject is that both men and women will fall out of the sales funnel if the shipping/handling charges are simply unrealistic. They'll also drop out if you separate out the true shipping charges and want an unrealistic handling charge.

Though both will have drop outs, women seemed a lot more sensitive to this type of thing than men from testing I've done on the subject. Though as I said it's very, very difficult to quantify since you can't possibly know the sex of a visitor until after they've made a purchase and you have a name to put with the transaction. So there end up being some fairly major assumptions made, namely that your historical male vs female will hold up during the test.

FWIW, a really strange thing I noticed during these tests is that more men seemed to respond positively to Free Shipping offers as compared to women. Women just didn't seem to bite that much more often than they would with my control that had reasonable S&H charges. With nothing else changing, men seemed to finish the purchase more when they got to a previously unadvertised free shipping notice.

All of this was the opposite of what I'd expected given the previous (never free) shipping and handling tests I'd run that showed women are more sensitive to S&H, or at least overpriced S&H.

[copywriter]

Wow! This is an old one. But, as Randy said, worth reliving.

I'll weigh in on the female side and tell you that I won't pay ridiculous shipping charges. For instance, just recently I began looking for an alternate source for liquid vitamins because the company I'd bought from for years began charging unrealistic shipping. It would add as much as $6 or $7 per bottle to the total. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nah.gif) Not gonna do it.

I've loved their product for years, but I'm not going to pay what I know for a fact is over twice what actual shipping charges should be.

Hi Alex! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/hi.gif) Welcome aboard! Do you know you have a typo in your signature link? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/giggle.gif)

This post has been edited by copywriter: Jun 7 2008, 05:19 PM

[Randy]

Oddly enough, Karon just told my secret. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol.gif)

When I first noticed the women -> shipping rates thing (after the fact, because the data was sooooooo one sided it stuck out like a big old sore thumb) none of it meant anything to me. In fact it just confused me to I mentally sort of wrote it off as a momentary anomoly. Being male and all.

Then a month or so later I had a captive audience at a family reunion. So I asked the question of the females there because I was bored and they always want to know what I've been up to lately. My mom, aunt's, female cousins, all chimed in and suddenly my data wasn't an anomoly anymore. It was a much larger issue than I would have guessed.

So the next time I was conducting real in person market research --for another set of sites entirely-- I made sure to put some questions in there about shipping and handling charges. That's where I really saw a clear line in the sand. A strong majority of women in the test group (80 percent plus) had huge issues with shipping and handling charges that seemed out of whack. Strong enough to influence their buying decision without a doubt, given their strong negative feelings about the subject.

Of course I always take that kind of stuff with a grain of salt because during market research sessions people are thinking about what they're beingg asked too much, as opposed to simply seeing and reacting. So you don't always get the real Best answer. But as a very general rule this one has proven out as best as I could expect in what I see happening on real sites with real visitors.

[arlen]

Well, I for one am really glad this thread got resuscitated .... an excellent read that I missed the first go-round. Really useful info!

I'd add one little observation from my experience I don't think anyone touched on yet: Men tend to shop for themselves. Women shop for others and for themselves.

A very large percentage of my customers are women, and a very large percentage of them are buying gifts. Most of my male customers are buying for their own use, and are mostly focused on a only narrow range of the products I offer. Lots of execptions of course, but there is a definite distinction overall in gender-specific shopping patterns.

More than onle light bulb flickered over my head as I read this thread ... lots to consider. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumbup1.gif)

[BBCoach]

Typically, I would agree that women are more cost conscientious than men. However, on my male centric site women complain about high shipping costs maybe 1 out of 10 versus 4 or 5 out of 10 for men. True, there are more men shoppers, but I'm amazed that only a very low percentage of women complain about shipping costs. I chatted with hollybgirl about this variance and she brought up that it may be due to the level of trust we've developed with the ladies via customer service & technical advice in this male centric market. We help them make the right purchasing decision. As a result, we bring more perceived value to the bottom-line than we charge in merchandise and shipping/handling fees. Sounds like a reasonable explanation for this market. All I know is that we continue to get more new female customers and repeat sales from them with little to no complaining about our high shipping costs.

[Randy]

Each market and each site is most definitely different BBCoach. Which is why it's incredibly difficult to make any general statements. If you're excelling with building trust --wspecially with your female customers-- it would make complete sense to me that they'd cut you a break on shipping and handling charges.

That said, if it were me what I'd want to test to make sure some aren't dropping out of the process quietly, without ever sending a question or complaint to get your attention.

I hope Karon weighs back in on the subject, because my sense from her earlier post was that she wasn't contacting the company she's already been doing busines with because of their shipping charge increase. She was simply going to leave then silently.

The fact that you're getting repeat female buyers bodes well though. Not conclusive, but a very good sign.

[redsonia!]

Could this info about women and shipping charges mean that women would be more likely to buy an item with a high shipping charge if the item is listed as having "free shipping" - and the shipping cost is just added into the price of the product? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thinking.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/searchme.gif)

[copywriter]

Well, you couldn't up the price too much or it would trigger us bargain shoppers that what you were asking for those delights and delectables was out of whack with the rest of the marketplace. But, honestly, if I had a choice of paying $4.95 for something that had $7.95 shipping or paying $7.95 for the product and $4.95 shipping, I'd choose the latter.

I think these days everybody feels like they are being gouged by shipping charges.