To paraphrase those much-paraphrased Bill Clinton advisors, “It’s the women, stupid!”
Everyone knows retail success comes from appealing directly to the female of the species. And not only if you’re selling Manolo Blahnik shoes or Victoria’s Secret lingerie or Calphalon cookware. Retailers have discovered women also influence the sale of power tools, car batteries and, by the way, consumer electronics for the home.
But Best Buy, the consumer electronics retail leader, recently acknowledged that its appeal to women buyers has evidently stalled. While its share of the U.S. market was recently 22 percent, its share of sales to U.S. women was just 16 percent.
So Best Buy says it’s tapping into its softer side. It’s empowering its female employees to suggest new ways to sell to women. It’s also gathering focus groups of female consumers around the country.
What are the gals telling Best Buy? One of the groups suggested redesigning showrooms to resemble kitchens, to drive appliance sales. Another group suggested a customer loyalty plan allowing women to donate accumulated points to their children’s schools for computers and other merchandise.
Best Buy has announced plans to roll out used-games sales to all of its stores. “This is very important to the moms out there,” says Best Buy ceo Brian Dunn, “because children tend to tire quickly of games. My wife is quite thrilled. She’s been pushing me hard on the used-gaming solution.”
And it has introduced Best Buy Mobile, a smaller gadget store concept, to gain traction in the malls, where everyone knows women and girls hang out and shop as part of that secret club they all belong to.
Innovative solutions, all. Why, then, do Best Buy’s own numbers suggest it’s losing the women? My hunch is that Walmart and Target have traditionally done a better job of getting female shoppers into their stores to begin with, and both retailers are expanding and softening their consumer electronics presentations.
On the other hand, Best Buy’s freestanding big box stores just aren’t as inviting to women, no matter how much tweaking and focus-grouping they’ve tried to do. They’re testosterone overload, with screens flashing, speakers blaring and a bunch of guys who really know their stuff advising you about that stuff if you know your stuff, too.
Still, give credit to Best Buy for trying. In explaining Best Buy’s New Blue concept, aimed directly at women, senior vp James Damien told VMSD: “The design metaphor we used was to soften the warehouse environment to make it more like a loft.” Problem is, that was in 2008. And don’t we all know that women want what they want now?