While Australian retailers struggle to bring shoppers into stores, one of the strongest trends appearing in the US market is the continued frugality by mothers. Yet, while its seems they have cutback their spend on children for their Back to School needs by 7%, the expectation for parents to supply non-academic items and to monitor their children’s work at home is growing.

One of the drivers for this is the connectivity by mothers to their smartphones, tablets and laptops:  Almost half (47%) of moms with children ages 7-12, and 67% of moms with teenagers are expected to monitor their child’s grades and attendance online. 

One in three children from elementary through high school are assigned online homework, and nearly half of moms of children ages 7-12, and 61% of moms of teenagers, say their child would not be able to complete homework assignments with access to a computer at home. 

Moms are also delaying their spending with just-in-time shopping, possibly waiting for sales.  Nearly one-third of families will begin shopping just one to two weeks before school starts, up from less than one-quarter last year. And more than 40% of shoppers will begin shopping three weeks to one month before school starts, up from 33% last year.

According to the National Retail Federation, back-to-school and back-to-college spending is the second biggest sales season behind holidays.  Spending per family with children in grades K-12 will average US$603.63, down slightly from last year’s average of US$606.40. Back-to-college spending will average US$808.71, down from US$835.73 last year.

More women say they will buy store-brand or generic items, comparison shop, shop for sales and use coupons. Last year many families replenished and replaced worn-out items that had been in use throughout the recession, meaning that spending in categories like clothing and school supplies will decrease slightly this year, the NRF found. Nearly 30% of those surveyed said they would be making do with last year’s school items.

While KMart is working hard to bring the shopping experience for women down to the lowest common denominator, an inspired but simple campaign has been launched at the same time by Carpet Court. This brand seems to have grasped the essential concept that women want a positive experience above all when they are shopping and not a cheap discount.

This principle applies no matter what their social demographic suggests.

The Carpet Court TV campaign caught my eye when I saw it displaying models on a catwalk wearing carpet. Yes, the agency had designed a fashion collection made from carpet (well that’s what it looked like) and it was good. Badged the Designer Style Collection, it follows through to their website and presumably their other media campaigns. At this stage I can’t see a social media footprint, so I hope this is underway as I would like to engage with this company.

In fact, I am in the market for a carpet refresh and they will be top on my list. Somewhere, a lot further down will be the father and son duo of the Little Doer with the tagline “tell em’ the price son”.

The difference between these two brands is glaring and if you visit both their sites, you can really study the difference between a gender intelligent campaign at Carpet Court and one created by men, for men over at the Little Do’er.

From a basic marketing perspective, they are both successful because they have established their Unique Selling Proposition’s (USP) very clearly. They are unmistakably differentiated.

However, if I were to invest in either of these companies from an objective, measured position, it would have to be Carpet Court.

They understand that the primary purchaser of all products is women and the days of women being impressed by a male giving them advice on price are well and truly over.

In Australia, over 72% of women control the household budget and that also extends to carpet. They look for a brand that looks like them when they are deciding where to make this investment.

They have long outgrown the male voiceover campaigns that scream at them about price discounts and get in quick sales. They just don’t trust them anymore.

For retailers scratching their heads this week about the reasons why consumers (read women) aren’t buying right now, take a close look at your advertising, use of media, how you speak to them and about them.

Disrespect just pushes her further away, while empathy draws her closer. Carpet Court knows this and watch their sales grow as a result.

If you didn’t attend the BlogHer conference in San Diego earlier this month, then you missed out on rubbing shoulders with the online world’s digital elite: women who blog.

The site was founded by BlogHer president and CEO Lisa Stone (pictured) whom I was excited to meet at the M2W conference in Chicago in April.

Stone and her team have gathered a powerhouse of females bloggers on their site and now leading brands are lining up to showcase their products through this dynamic medium.

One company that is smart enough to see an opportunity to connect with the 20 million female bloggers on the Blogher network is Procter & Gamble, which will partner with the media network with a year-long program called “Life Well Lived.”

The program includes both a P&G-sponsored hub at BlogHer.com and specific product engagement opportunities for around 10 P&G brands across a range of individual blogs in the network.

If you look at BlogHer.com, the site uses the thematic verticals: “Looking Your Best,” “Getting Organized,” and “Getting Happy,” with P&G sponsorship of content featuring appropriate products.

Bloggers will also lead discussions, sample and review new P&G products, and P&G will continue its major presence at BlogHer conferences around the country.

Program launched at conference

The one-year program launched at the San Diego conference where P&G was a lead conference sponsor, and whose exhibition is a “house” in which 23 of its brands are spotlighted. The four-day conference is one of six BlogHer events this year.

The program is the first one-year partnership that the six-year-old blog network has signed.

“We have been very fortunate to have Procter & Gamble as a sponsor in the past, and last year they were a lead sponsor of our conference as well,” BlogHer President and CEO Lisa Stone said.

According to Stone, while the company’s hub is a “central place to kick off the conversation around everyday solutions that P&G is well known for,” the goal is to work with brands and bloggers “to develop authentic, insightful conversations that become persuasive dialogue.”

80% of readers buy on blogger recommendations?

She said that for three years, 80% of the BlogHer reader base has reported purchasing products based on blogger recommendations.

“There’s a level of earned trust between readers and blogger.”

Other major brands that have tied up exclusive sponsorships with BlogHer properties include Gatorade, which sponsors a sports section on BlogHer.com, and book publisher Penguin, which has an exclusive content and sponsorship deal with the book review section of the site. The site only reviews Penguin books.

“That said, we want real thoughts, and our book reviewers should be able to say whatever they think so there is no editorial control over the reviews,” Stone explained.

According to Stone, 60% of the 25 million or so people who read the BlogHer network have kids under 18.

She adds that the percentage of BlogHer aficionados who earn at least US$75,000 per year is greater than that of the general public and that readers also over-index for having an entrepreneurial mindset.

“They are Gen X, and they are the ultimate consumer. They are foodies, they love to shop; they are also tech-savvy.”

A P&G spokesperson says that while the digital program includes an advertising component, “the biggest part is the actual content. Each of our [involved] brands has an opportunity to provide something to engage the group of bloggers. And that is overlaid with the central hub BlogHer is creating, which really talks about ‘life well lived,’ that is sponsored by P&G but not product-specific.”

Trying to connect with women on an authentic level is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today, especially those without a dedicated gender intelligent culture.

This struggle was certainly played out on the big screen this week following the launch of Kmart’s campaign to launch its new low cost pricing model. Sure, the ad has hundreds of women in it but they didn’t connect with me, or many women who have told me they feel disappointed by the retailer’s effort.

Why?

First, Kmart and its ad agency broke the golden rule of marketing to women. It  focused on price instead of the feeling or experience that women would receive in-store.

Sure, the research will probably point to the fact that the target demographic is experiencing an economic squeeze and for them low prices are important. This may be true to a point, but there is an overwhelming body of global research that reveals women want to feel valued by brands that back up service with acknowledgement and recognition.

Kmart might say that their ad campaign shows women having fun in their stores (more about that later) but when I visited a Kmart store last Monday, women were waiting at the sole checkout for service because three staff hadn’t arrived for work. The lone staffer was apologetic and stressed and these female shoppers with their trolleys, children in tow and tight schedules, weren’t laughing.

Second, for some reason the TV ad depicts women doing unnatural things. It actually shows mature women careering down the store aisles on children’s bikes with tiny helmets on their heads. Now, like you I have been in many stores during my time, but never have I seen a sight like this nor have I felt compelled to grab a childs toy for a joyride.

It is unrealistic and whatever the gender of the creative director behind the ad, they certainly don’t understand that women prefer to chat together over a coffee or a wine, with the aim of sharing insights and experiences.

The underlying competitive tone of this ad pitches women against each other to get the best deal and of course price. This outmoded thinking comes straight from a monocultural perspective where everyone is always fighting for the best outcome.

Finally, as Kmart is part of the Coles Group, the ad feels like it has imported a large group of female extras from the Down, Down, Price Are Down, campaign and tweaked it to fit Kmart’s new model.

Some women will be attracted to shop in Kmart for its low prices, wide aisles and clean environment; these are pluses that women can see at a glance. But if they really want to cut through and kick-start sluggish sales, the Kmart advertising and marketing department needs to do much better.

When I attended the MarketingToWomen Conference in Chicago earlier this year, I was overwhelmed by the data that showed it was women who were investing their time, experience and money in creating sustainable communities on the internet. And it was the men running businesses who were eagerly trying to tap into this wealth.

Now the figures are in. In a post this week, Aileen Lee, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers revealed that   Comscore, Nielsen, MediaMetrix and Quantcast studies all show women are the driving force of the most important net trend of the decade, the social web.

According to Comscore women are the majority of users of social networking sites and spend 30% more time on these sites than men; according to Nielsen mobile social network usage is 55% female.

Women have migrated away from the traditional retail models and into gender intelligent cyberspace. This is fact and Australian retailers know it, keenly.

Last week I suggested that the Australian retailers who continue to describe their shoppers as “consumers” start to smarten up and identify who really holds the power to make or break their businesses and call them by their gender: women.

Women flexing their web muscles

Not surprisingly, it is in e-commerce, where the female purchasing muscle is really being flexed. Lee has dissected sites like Zappos ($1 billion in revenue last year), Groupon ($760m last year), Gilt Groupe ($500m projected revenue this year), Etsy (over $300m in GMV last year), and Diapers ($300m estimated revenue last year) are all driven by a majority of female customers.

 According to Gilt Groupe, women are 70% of the customer base and they drive 74% of revenue.  And 77% of Groupon’s customers are female according to their site.

Have a look at this trend: Women even shop more on Chegg, a site which offers textbook rentals on US college campuses attended evenly by both males and females. Renting would seem an equal opportunity money saver, plus it’s better for the planet.

But according to Chegg, females are 65% of renters a decision which requires a little more advanced planning.  Chegg’s research shows women are more inclined to plan ahead than men. And, they seem to care more about saving money, and are more likely to be influenced by a friend’s recommendation.

Horsewomen of the net

Not surprisingly, engines of the consumer web Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and Twitter are  dominated by women. Lee suggests that we now make that  “horsewomen”.

Facebook’s, COO, Sheryl Sandberg, has highlighted  how women are not only the majority of its users, but drive 62% of activity in terms of messages, updates and comments, and 71% of the daily fan activity.

 Women have 8% more Facebook friends on average than men, and spend more time on the site.  According to an early Facebook team member, women played a key role in the early days by adopting three core activities—posting to walls, adding photos and joining groups—at a much higher rate than males.  If females had not adopted in the early days, I wonder if Facebook would be what it is today.  And we all know that where women go, men follow.

Lee also points out that more  women use Twitter, despite a reputation for being a techie insider’s (ie male) product.  Women follow more people, tweet more, and have more followers on average than men, according to bloggers Dan Zarella and Darmesh Shaw’s analyses.

Brian Solis’s analysis on the social net gender divide shows females are the majority of visitors on the following sites, which he calls “matriarchys”:  Twitter, Facebook, Deli.ci.ous, Docstoc, Flickr, Myspace, Ning, Upcoming.org, uStream, Classmates.com, Bebo and Yelp.  The one “patriarchy” site he notes, where males outpace females:  Digg.

I have not yet spoken to a retailer or marketer who doesn’t agree that women are their primary purchasers. The sticking point appears to be their lack of either will to change or understanding about what to do.

Frustratingly, they are continuing to seek advice from agencies and consultants where the male monoculture continues to dominate. We saw this in the lack of research into the female market by Y&R when it presented concept for a new campaign to PICA earlier this year.

Now is the time to start to build gender intelligent know-how into your business, all it takes is a decision.

I wonder if retailers started to substitute the term “shopper” or “consumer” for “women”, it might help them begin to make the transition away from the old model of business to the new online world, where women rule.

It is well known that women are the engine of the global economy, driving 80% of consumer spending in the US and a conservative 72% of all household purchases in Australia .

The poor results we are seeing from companies such as David Jones and Premier Investments is due to women deciding to make a deep change to the way they spend their own money and that of their household. Because women have such a tight grip on their purse strings as they do now, companies must be shrewder than ever to win them over.

As Bridget Brennan, a leading US consultants on marketing to women advises, “just when executives have mastered becoming technology literate, they find there’s another skill they need: becoming female literate.” 

Here is a list of tips from Bridget for companies who really want to increase their revenue from the gender that holds the power:

The Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing to Women

1.   Acting like customer service and marketing are two different things. Women place a premium on service. Call your own customer-service line to see if your company’s mission, vision and values come alive while you’re on hold. In a world of busy women, customer service can be your most powerful differentiator. It’s shocking that great service is still considered a novelty in almost every industry.

2.   Being too serious, earnest or sweet in communications. Resist the temptation to treat women as delicate flowers. The world is littered with too many syrupy efforts targeted at women. Companies tend to shy away from using humour with women, especially with moms and especially with anyone over 50. This is an opportunity: women love a good laugh but rarely get one from marketers.

3.   Believing pink is catnip for women. Put the pink stick down and slowly back away. Unless you’re raising money for breast cancer, be sure to feature more colours than pink in your product design and marketing efforts. Pink is not a strategy.

4.   Creating imaginary worlds where all women are in their 20s and early 30s. Wake up to the enormous market of the aging population. Older women have major money to spend, and are consistently ignored by youth-obsessed businesses. Just try to buy a pair of jeans for your mom this weekend, and see what I mean.

5.   Automating everything. Nothing can replace human help, especially where women are concerned. (Remember: we have no problem asking for directions.) That’s why even Apple has “geniuses” inside its stores. Make human help available as an option at all times, and don’t hide your customer service number as if it were plutonium.

6.   Assuming women’s ideas about what’s “hot,” sexy and attractive are the same as men’s. Not true. There’s a big difference between sex appeal and gender appeal. To learn the difference, read chapter 5 of the book, Why She Buys.

7.   Excluding women from your female-focused initiatives. This is just plain short-sighted, but it happens all the time. The decision to include only junior-level women on a project or a creative team is also a missed opportunity. Young executives may not have the confidence to tell senior-level decision-makers that their instincts are off base.

Last year I was fortunate to visit Beijing as part of a media team hosted by global appliances company Haier. In between press conferences, factory visits and eating a lot of curious Chinese food, I managed to dash into a new ‘mall’ in the city.

As I walked beside the glitzy shopfronts of the global retail brands pasted into the walls, I was intrigued by the constant stream of expensively dressed young women walking towards me, carrying the purchases they had just made at these stores. And all in their lunch hour!

Not only is Beijing a leading hub of Fortune 500 companies where these women work, it is also home to self-made female entrepreneurs, a rapidly emerging market segment that also wants high-end baubles and toys.

Leading fashion brand Chloé says that in two years China will become its biggest market because of female shoppers. And there’s more:

30% of Maserati’s bought by women
According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Maserati has been hosting private cocktail parties with Giorgio Armani’s cosmetics line and the Italian lingerie company La Perla to court newly rich female drivers in China. 30% of the 400 cars Maserati sold in China last year were bought by women, compared with just 7% in 2005, according to the company. Maserati says the proportion of its Chinese drivers who are women dwarfs the ratio in the European and US markets, where only 2% to 5% are women.

Managing director of Maserati China, Christian Gobber, had this to say,  ”Many people are inclined to believe that gentlemen are generously purchasing luxury gifts for women in China, but our observation is that the great majority [of the buyers] are women who have achieved great success in their business and are now rewarding themselves with the finer things in life.”

Women accounted for more than half of China’s estimated US$15 billion in luxury sales in 2010, according to a survey by consultancy McKinsey & Co. That compares with 45% in 2008, when McKinsey conducted its previous survey. The average female luxury consumer in China also spent 22% more in 2010 than in 2008, while men spent only 10% more.

China to dominate luxury market in 8 years
China’s luxury market, expected to become the world’s largest by 2020,has been driven by men for the past decade. As they bought gifts for business associates, men spurred the growth in China of Swiss watchmakers, jewellery stores like Cartier and other luxury-fashion brands like Louis Vuitton and Gucci. And while they often bought gifts for women, they were the ones making the luxury purchases.

But that has now changed as women have emerged as a growing force and brands that traditionally appeal to women are making a bigger push.

McKinsey principal Yuval Atsmon says that women feel more pressure than men to stay up to date with fashion, adding that Chinese shoppers are increasing their spending on ready-to-wear clothing, and the majority of those shoppers are women.

In two years, China will become Chloé’s biggest market because of the rise of female shoppers, according to president and chief executive Geoffroy de-la-Bourdonnaye. “Women in this country are becoming more independent, more career-oriented, and more powerful in the market,” he told WSJ.

Retailers trying new tactics
Many retailers are experimenting with new tactics online, where women are more likely to shop than men and where they often influence purchases by others via comments on blogs and social-networking sites, according to McKinsey.

Chanel invited Chinese artist Zhou Yi to attend its Paris fashion show in March, hoping she would plug the brand to her following of nearly 3,000 fashion types on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like microblogging service.

Givenchy, part of the LVMH empire, launched its own Weibo account in January and is using it to connect with female followers and announce the arrival of new products, such as Nightingale leather bags, which sell for 16,000 to 32,000 yuan.

Givenchy’s president of China, Asia Pacific Wilfred Koo, says, “Women want more ways to experience the brand—to touch and feel and interact.”

Meanwhile, the rapid growth in China has seen 76% of China’s female college graduates aspire to management positions, compared with 52% of their US counterparts, according to the New York-based Center for Work-Life Policy. China is also home to 11 of the world’s 20 richest self-made women, and it boasts 153 female yuan billionaires (around $150 million), according to the Hurun Report, a Shanghai-based firm.

Paying for luxury makes us happy
The takeaway for Australian business from this important trend is to remember that top of the list of any womans buying decision is “how does it make me feel?” And when you can meet this need with your in-store or online experience, then you can charge a premium.

The WSJ verified this when they spoke to 32-year-old Beijing native, Sun Ningning, a sales manager at GlaxoSmithKline PLC. She recently bought a 12,600 yuan leather handbag as a gift for herself at a cost of around 15% more than her monthly salary.

“There’s just something about buying luxury that makes me feel happy,”  Ms Sun said.  ”I can’t really explain it.”

Instead of trawling through the masses of male owned media reports to find inspiration for this column, I regularly check my own customised news feed that I have curated from the world’s most successful women.

I apply the same principle to growing the database for my women’s technology site www.connectedwomen.net.au, but here I use a recipe of online sources and real time networking.As well as attending a least one female  focused business event every week,  I also meet personally with my readers and unabashedly talk to women (and occasionally men) I meet on public transport, in stores or on the street about my business.

 I recently gained a new subscriber at a cafe at Sydney’s Galleries Victoria after I presented on ‘Women Making a Difference’  at the PMA Conference. The barista (and business owner) commented on my smart attire and we went from there. A few days later, I bumped into NSW Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian outside the gorgeous Nespresso store in Pitt St Mall. We chatted briefly and yes, Gladys is now part of my tribe.

 In these arenas I meet with women who are really flexing their buying power and who aren’t shy when it comes to networking with other like-minded women to grow their enterprises.

The role that these women are carrying out is Women Market’s Manager for their companies because like most canny business people, they know that  women not only control more than 72% of the household dollar in Australasia but the global women’s economy is larger than the economies of China and India combined.

But as profit forecasts are slashed and share prices dive, many businesses are refusing to accept this reality and make the necessary changes. You probably wouldn’t be surprised to hear that when I talk with business owners or CEO’s in the CE industry  who have asked me to consult to them about making sales to women, one of the first objections they raise to this concept is, ”it will upset the male executives”!

These are men who run publicly listed companies whose stores are empty  as women desert their businesses and start to spend their money with either like minded women who understand their buying needs, or with those clever male owned companies who have made the change.

What is stopping you from creating a role within your company designed to specifically nurture the women’s markets and bring more women (and their tribes) into your business?

If your answer is, that you are afraid of upsetting the male status-quo within the company, then at least you will know why your sales are failing, rather than blaming it on the Carbon Tax or natural disasters.

It happens to me all the time.

 I was sitting at the Women’s Network Australia monthly lunch yesterday in Sydney, chatting (but really networking) with a group of ten businesswomen, when the conversation turned from the difficulty of managing Gen Y employees to: you guessed it, how these very wealthy and successful women really dislike trying to shop for digital products in local CE stores.

Emma, who owns a business exporting educational products to around 15 countries related an experience she encountered last weekend when she attempted to shop at a very well known store in Burwood.

Sales staff ignored her
She mentioned the name of the store many times to the table of ten and then explained how frustrated and angry she felt when the ethnic heritage male sales staff continued to ignore her.

Finally, she went to the desk to complain and was told there was nothing the manager could do about it!

Well, like many women Emma pushed down that feeling of anger and walked out of the store with her purse unopened. But believe me it wasn’t pushed down for long, because not only did she tell the table of women about the experience but when it come for her it discuss her business plans to the room of sixty odd women, she announced the store name and location!

So multiply that figure of sixty with the fact that women have a circle of around 15 immediate friends and associates that they will pass that information too, then you have a beginning. Then add another figure. Most women in that room also have a Blog, Facebook Page and Twitter and LinkedIn account’s, that they use daily.

The impact of that negative experience being passed on in perpetuity is enormous and I feel for the owner of that store who, in a retail recession doesn’t understand the damage that a monocultural sales system is costing him.

If you would like to stop this happening to you, first call me! But seriously you might like to read some of the latest figures about wealthy women, whom really just want a positive shopping experience.
Social pros: According to a survey by Fidelity Investments, 34% of  millionaires use social media professionally, including 28% who use LinkedIn. Women on LinkedIn, meanwhile, represent 37% of the site’s users, according to the Pew Research Center.
 
Saving money: Consumers who print digital coupons have an average household income of $105,000 and 36% have college degrees, according to Coupons.com
 
Luxury target: Affluent market researcher Pamela Danziger says luxury marketers must increasingly rely on coaxing those women with household incomes $100-$250k back to spending on luxury, as there are 10 such households to every ultra-affluent household.
 
Boomers online: Female Boomers who go online tend to be wealthier than the norm at $84,700 in median household income compared to $60,200 for all US adults, says AARP research director Mark Bradbury.
 
Wall Street: According to its media kit, 34% of the Wall Street Journal’s US subscriber base, which boasts an average household income of $313,439, is female… and they’re looking for more, according to MediaPost’s Erik Sass.
I doubt that Emma will ever go back to that store without an invitation from the owner and that she will be one of the thousands migrating to a better experience online.

Don’ t let that happen to you.

Today you will find me over at the Sydney Exhibition Centre once again, but this time it is at the glamourous Good Food & Wine Show . This is an arena chock full of brands who know how to connected with women just because it’s in their DNA.

But as I’m multi-tasking today, I thought I would let you reflect on a blog from a great US blogsite SheEconomy . This week they are giving out some free advice (based on real-time research) on how to make your website appeal to women, and if you’re  just about to spend thousands of dollars rebuilding your company’s site, you might like to consider this:

“You’ve watched your wife at home multi-tasking like a mad woman. Checking homework, chopping veggies for dinner, scanning the CNN ticker on TV, packing school lunches and folding a load of clothes at the same time—all while she pens out a gracious thank you note, seals, addresses it, stamps it and mails it in one smooth motion.

Call us crazy, call us focus-deficient, but you must to admit, we get it done and most of the time, it’s done right. We can’t help it. It’s how we’re hard-wired. That doesn’t make us smarter, but it does cause us to process information differently than our more linear-minded male counterparts.

How She Clicks

So, of course it makes sense we have our own unique way of surfing and utilizing the Web. It’s simple cognitive psychology really: women synthesize; men analyze.

A recent Internet behavior study in Columbus, Ohio and San Francisco, found well-documented proof that women multi-task online, and their constituent-driven behavior increases their tendency to move quickly across as many options as possible.

And because they are more relationship driven in their loyalty to a brand, paired with their natural aversion to anything hard-sell, women prefer more interactive areas of Web sites.

Women naturally gravitate to the more active areas of a Web site in search of a place where they can connect and seek out the advice and insight of other women. They might read a blog or watch a video while they await a chat response or scan inventory. Women love to click from window to window, from tab to tab, and gather up as much information as possible in a limited time.

So sellers targeting the female buyer might seriously consider revamping or adding to their site, and draw her in with options, social media, blogs and loads of interactivity.”