SHOPPING LIFE

How best to explain the different shopping habits of women and men?

Nationally recognized sales and marketing expert Delia Passi asked one of the few men attending a recent marketing luncheon how long it took him to buy a white shirt at the mall.

“Three minutes,” he said to much laughter.

“Your three-minute trip takes us three hours,” said Passi, author of “Winning the Toughest Customer: The Essential Guide to Selling to Women.” “We think and then we think some more and then we think some more. We have to feel really good about the purchase … and then we buy.”

Women influence more than 80 percent of all purchases in the U.S., Passi said. Women also are starting businesses at more than twice the rate of men, and those with revenues of more than $10 million have grown by about 40 percent since 1997. So learning their method of purchasing can make for a big payoff, she said.

Women operate under a different set of rules – they take longer to make a decision, need more input, expect more attentive service and require more follow-up, Passi said.

Typically, when potential customers stop talking, the salesperson will step in to pull them in the direction of the sale. But Passi said women average nearly three times as many words a day as men, so when a woman pauses for four seconds, don’t jump in to tie up the sales pitch. She probably hasn’t finished her thought yet.

Women buy 83 percent of all products and services, including:

•80 percent of all health care

•55 percent of bank choice

•50 percent of all business travel

•65 percent of herbal remedies, vitamins and minerals

•66 of all autos (and influence 85 percent of purchases)

•50 percent of all computers

•90 percent of all jewelry, perfume and related items

McClatchy Newspapers