1. The items in men's department are packed in nice boxes. Shirts are sold in transparent packages and neatly arranged in colour, size and cutting. If you know what you are looking for, you can swoop in and get the right package, pay for it and it's yours.
2. For the ladies' department, you'll seldom see cloths packed, if at all. They are often found hanging on racks so that shoppers can browse them easily. I don't recall seeing any packages at all, which is quite unlike those in the men's department.
3. From the layout of different shops, you can see whether they are meant for females or men. If it's meant for men, you'll see them all packed neatly in boxes or packages. For females, it's all laid out for you to see. If there are 3 colours for the same model, you'll see 3 colours all laid out in front. In general, shopping centres are meant to entice female shoppers than male shoppers. Go look around and see if I'm wrong.
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| Men's shirts. Neat rows and columns and packages. |
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| Ladies' dresses - Spread out, displayed and no packages. |
There must be some kind of behavioural science involved in this. Otherwise, why would every shopping centre that I go to adopt this kind of goods arrangement? Maybe men are hunters, so they prefer hunting for their things when they shop. So if the goods are arranged neatly in a logical fashion, it'll be easier to look for them and go off. Females are gatherers, so they are good at picking good items from a wide variety of things. Their eye for detail enables them to pick things that usually eludes men. It's almost like all the concentration powers in their vision is narrowed down to a small beam in front of them, so they see 200% in clear, zoomed in details. For men? Their concentration powers in their vision is spread over a wider range of view (more than 180 degrees), so that they can see more, though in lesser detail.
Knowing this might present some interesting information on how you do things, depending on who your target audience is.
1. If you're selling to men, put in nice boxes and arranged them in a logical fashion, so that they don't have to ask for help and can find their way around independently.
2. If you're selling to women, put all your goods out to display, so that they can feel and touch and compare and contrast. Putting in nice boxes to display your items must be quite a turn off for them, I suppose.
3. For men, because they loath to ask for directions, it's better to have all the information available on the boxes. For women, even if it's there, they'll ask. I'm, of course, generalizing and stereotyping here, but this works most of the time.
Can we apply the same standards to financial blogs? Is my blog more catered towards women or male readers? I think mine is more feminine than masculine. Do you think so?
10 comments :
A very trivial information since you put up post on shirt..
Do you know that the buttons for male's shirt and female's shirt are located at opposite side? Buttons on the right, and the hole on the left for male and the opposite for the ladies..
Hi h202,
Yes I do! I even know why! Something to do with the sword hand or something,lol!
You noticed too ;)
You are manly man.
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/011/392/manlyman.PNG
LP,
I think you may have the vision thing mixed-up ;)
Men have a more tunnel vision to better judge distances when shooting an arrow or throwing a spear. The lesser peripheral vision also helps in filtering out distractions like the way we put blinkers on a horse.
Women have a broader arc of vision as they need to keep one eye on the maid to make sure she is not flirting with her man again; another eye on boy boy so that he does not put his hand into the boiling soup; do the knitting in her hands; and all this while watching the TV at the same time!!!
LOL!
Hi SMK,
LOL, I'm definitely not a manly man!
Hi LP,
On the contrary , I think your blog caters more to male audience.
You posts are usually backed by theories, case studies and examples. If we relate it to shopping, females don't really need a reason to shop.
I think the main reason why the ladies department is arranged in a different manner is to encourage the ladies to buy more. They may be an expert in picking up items at a bargain but if they really like something, they will still buy them and if it is affordable the same item in different colors.
Hi SMOL,
Yea, I was told by someone in fb that I got it wrong...I did some research and indeed I was wrong.
But interesting, the women I observed are usually the reverse! They tend have very good tunnel vision, concentrating everything they had in that narrow beam of vision, whereas the men I observed tend to look everywhere but nowhere at the same time! I wonder why...
Maybe the hunter has switched positions with the gatherer! I know of more males doing housework and cooking than females these days, and men who are better with kids than women!
Hi Derek,
You think so? :)
You're right, my wife would buy multiple colours if she really like it. To accessorize. I really can't be bothered lol
Hi LP
I think the layout of your blog is quite tidy and it's not "all over the place", so I think it's more masculine. Or were you not referring to the layout? ;)
Hi RT,
haha, now I don't know what's masculine and feminine anymore!
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