Steven Levingston
and Annys Shin, The Washington PostWASHINGTON:
As women demonstrate a growing appetite for consumer tech products, retailers and manufacturers are still only beginning to cater to this potentially huge reservoir of customers.
High-tech businesses and electronics retailers are changing store designs, increasing their marketing toward women, focusing on gadget accessories and boosting advertising in women's magazines all in a pitch to get women to walk the aisles and walk out with cell phones, MP3 players and plasma televisions.
But women remain wary of the splashiness and high-octane music of male-dominated retail outlets, said Mary Lou Quinlan, author of 'Just Ask A Woman Cracking the Code of What Women Want and How They Buy'.
first-on-the-block
"Guys walk around tech stores like they're in a porno shop looking for the fastest, newest, coolest, first-on-the-block thing, while women would rather shop in a calmer, information-based environment for products that will simplify their lives," Quinlan said.
To draw women in, stores have been turning down the music, changing the colour schemes and adding staff trained to meet women's needs. Radio Shack has gussied up its gray and black decor with bright purple, orange and green at its newer stores. Aisles have been widened and the product arrangements redone to make the place look less like a cluttered electronics hardware store. The company also has put more women on the sales floor.
"The store doesn't feel like a men's club anymore," said Charles Hodges, a spokesman for Radio Shack. "Now women can walk in and be helped by women just as knowledgeable as guys.''
Most technology manufacturers have few women among their top executives, and that translates into the kinds of products on the shelves and the way they are marketed, according to Quinlan. Few devices iPods and Palm handheld computers are among the exceptions tap into a woman's sense of style, she said.
"Design is key attractive, holdable, showable design," she said.
