Women are Changing Online Marketplace

The Success Blog of the Week goes to Women Diary, which features articles on all types of information of interest to women.

While collecting research to be used in my Mother's Day blog post about the incredible market value that moms wield in the USA, I read the Women Diary blog. This was helpful because it encouraged me to expand my idea from mom-oriented to women-oriented marketing.

According to Where Do Women Go Online a recent study (April 2006) by eMarketer:

Females have long embraced the Internet as a communications medium, having shown strong interests in online games, health content and music, but now adult women, who dominate consumer spending offline, are shifting more and more of their shopping online.

Advertising agencies, retailers and marketers as well as online news, entertainment, gaming, health care and travel sites are scrambling to find the right media mix that will bring women to their sites.

According to Lucid Marketing, a company that specializes in marketing to mothers, 22 percent of stay-at-home moms and 19 percent of those who work part time said they visit message boards or chat rooms daily.

Proof of this is the growth in the number of expectant moms and mothers of small children that visit sites such as Babycenter.com, which offers hundreds of online chats for expecting moms, mothers of preschoolers and more.

Lucid also found that 17 percent of moms that work part-time maintain their own blog. Women Diary blog features women's issues--from sex to pregnancy, celebrity gossip to gourmet recipes, fitness to mental health, dating to education, money to medicine. Women Diary provides onlie shopping guides on health, fashion and beauty products and timely information on women health issues.

If you would like to see mom's being courted by corporate American (Proctor and Gamble), make sure you visit VocalPoint.com, a community of influential moms that provide input into the marketing of food products, TV shows and more.

Women are changing the entire process and product of the online marketplace. The Internet shopping experience just became a lot more friendly. Get the products and services that you want, when you want them, and at a price you can afford. Expect to see more freebies, coupons, trial offers, and lots of value-added to your online shopping.

Demand to see changes in the interface through which you shop online.

• If you have a question, you want to see a chat window open and a helpful sales assistant appear who is knowledgeable about the products you have in your basket.


• Do you want to explain your question to the revolving moon-faced woman that sounds like every artificial voice to which you have ever listened? No.


• Do you want to call a 1-800 telephone number and explain your problem to a person that lives in India? No.


• Do you want to submit a customer service ticket and wait for them to get back to you? No.

Nothing is more frustrating than filling your virtual shopping cart with your products and then having to abandon it on the virutal aisle because there is no field on the order form, and no support, for entering free shipping or discount code. Millions of filled baskets standing abandoned and no one asked "WHY?" Women know why.

Ask a woman. It is so simple, but yet so hard because the advertising world is full of--you got it--men. If men knew what women wanted, this would be a totally different world. As it is, we will just have to settle for more women-friendly sites and swift and sure shopping!

Tags: Online Marketplace, online shopping, Internet shopping, Success blog of the week, Women Diary, eMarketer, virtual shopping cart