Women, Flooring & The Retail Experience On FloorDaily

Many home focused industries share interesting dynamics. They sell predominantly to women, yet manufacturing and retailing is mostly done by men. You can imagine the friction inherent to the resulting retail experience -- as is often true in flooring.

On January 23, 2010, I had the opportunity to touch on the very subject of women, flooring and the retail experience at the Big Bob's Flooring Outlet Annual Meeting in my presentation titled Flooring The Consumer: In-Store and Online.

Thanks to Kemp Harr from FloorDaily.net, here are some highlights to share with you from 1/29/10.

Christine Whittemore Discusses the Proper Way to Position Flooring To Women at Retail

Here's how Kemp describes the interview:

Christine Whittemore, with Simple Marketing Now, and Kemp Harr discuss the nuances of selling flooring to women. Listen to the interview to hear some statistics about women and to hear what their hot buttons are when it comes to buying flooring.

Listen at FloorDaily.net -- The interview lasts approximately 8 minutes and touches on:

Some of the stats from my presentation. More specifically:

66% of all personal computer purchases
67% of financial services
80% of home-improvement
83% of all consumer purchases
88% of retail customers in the U.S.
91% of home sales
94% of home furnishings

The importance of product quality [i.e., 'value' does not necessarily mean cheap].

The layout of a retail store

Banishing the hard sell [i.e., do more listening, ask questions, be a consultant/interpreter]

Women pay attention to details, so be sure to have a consistent in-store and online experience.

For additional perspective on the event itself, I also include a link to the interview Kemp had with Big Bob's leaders. They explain how my presentation helped them tell the story about the importance of service, how to take care of customers and 'crowning the customer.'

Big Bob Leaders Discuss Selling To Women and 2010 Outlook

Kemp's description of the interview: David Elyachar and Scott Perron discuss the highlights of their 17th Annual Convention. Listen to the interview to hear about how this year's convention focused on selling to women and also what their outlook is for 2010.

As I detailed in Women: Separate, Equal & Consumers Worth Appealing To, there's definitely opportunity associated with focusing on women and improving the retail experience in flooring and other home related categories.

I'd love to hear your reactions.

Thank you, Kemp!