Understanding Loyalty of Shoppers: Part II --Sex Matters

This is Part II of a three part blog. In Part I (July 11, 2011), I addressed reasons for consumers’ loyalty when shopping for women’s clothing. Today’s blog (Part II) addresses loyalty of shopping for men’s clothing. Part III (August 1) will address tactics for capturing the loyal market.

Loyal customers are worth their weight in gold. It is often stated that a business is more profitable by having fewer loyal customers than attracting many sporadic customers. Loyalty comes with a high price tag. Unfortunately, many retailers drive away customers as if they don’t need their patronage. Mistakes many retailers make include:

• Ignore customers’ product desires
• Inventory mismanagement
• Duplication of products across the competition
• Failure to identify changes in the target market
• Inability to attract and keep customers
• Assume all customers want the same products and services

In Part I Understanding Loyalty of Shoppers I talked about the primary types of stores consumers shopped for women’s clothing. BIGresearch© Consumer Intentions and Actions® Study of 8,379 respondents surveyed in April 2011 for women’s clothing and June 2011 for men’s clothing.  Department stores continued to dominate the consumers’ patronage for adults clothing. Specialty stores were popular for the men’s wear industry (11.8%). Retailers such as Jos A. Banks, Men’s Wear House, Ralph Lauren and Big & Tall shops catered to men’s specific garment needs in a well-defined location.

Men’s clothing is an important merchandise category for discount retailers. One-fourth (25.8%) of the respondents purchased men’s wear at discount stores. This compares to 21.6% of women’s clothing purchased at discount stores. The casualization of America, emphasis on savings and troubling economic climate gives discounters an excellent position in the casual men’s wear market.

The “no preference” answer for women’s clothing is a ripe group for enticing into your store. The group is equally large when shopping for men’s clothing (20.9%).  Consumers either (a) don’t know where to shop, (b) don’t like to shop, (c) don’t care what they wear or (d) haven’t found the ideal store. Retailers with ambition – those that want profits to soar – can and should capture these floundering consumers. You don’t need to “steal” these consumers away from any retailer; they aren’t loyal to anyone. Retailers simply need to find out what they think about when shopping.       

Source:  Consumer Intentions & Actions (CIA) Survey Women’s – April, 2011; Men’s June, 2011

Comparison between the sexes is popular regardless of the topic: (a) Who is better in business? (b) Which sex is better at sports? ( c) Is the female a better driver than the male? …. And the goes on…(z) What are the reasons for patronizing a the type of store when shopping for men’s (or women’s) clothing? Let’s face it – sex matters.

Regardless of sex, price is the number one reason for patronizing the type of store. This answer shouldn’t surprise anyone. If you are flush with cash, you probably shop at a designer store. If you have been hit by the economy, you might patronize a mid-level department store.

With the exception of price, criteria used in attracting customers for men’s wear is extremely differently than that of the women’s wear industry. When shopping for men’s wear, selection ranked second followed by quality. This may explain why fewer consumers patronized discount stores for men’s wear. Women’s wear shoppers identify location as the second most important criterion. Not so when shopping for men’s wear, location is not as important; shoppers are willing to drive in order to find the right men’s wear.

Source:  Consumer Intentions & Actions (CIA) Survey Women’s – April, 2011; Men’s June, 2011

All product categories are not created equally. Marketing for women’s clothing is not the same as marketing for men’s clothing. Different attributes are desired by consumers. It is important to keep your existing target market satisfied. Equally important is increasing market size. The “no preference” group is an excellent opportunity for capturing loyal consumers. Read the August 1^st blog for strategies on attracting and keeping loyal consumers.