Battle of the Sexes

My professional world is the ever exciting, ever changing world of office supplies. Filled with danger around every bend, it truly is a volatile occupation and is not for the faint of heart. Of course, there may be an ounce of hyperbole here but if nothing else, the office supply industry is not static. The old school businesses continue to dry up.

Women buyers now dominate the corporate buyer landscape accounting for close to 80% of all purchasing...at least the type of purchasing that impacts my business. Because women buyers are so prevalent, it has been said by supposed marketing experts that businesses better adapt to their wants or continue to forfeit market share.

So what does the woman buyer want? I wish I truly knew. If I did our business would be a thousand times the size it is today. But one theme remains consistent across all these marketing gurus, women buyers want solutions. Compared to men who as a group seem more interested in price, women interestingly prefer efficiency. They tend to understand better than many men that if they can work easier and faster, there is a dollar amount attached to that. Men want to save a nickel and may waste time and participate in an utterly illogical and inefficient process in order to save this precious nickel.

This is not to say that women are not frugal. Instead, it suggests that they see methodology as extremely important. Moreover, women seem to be more daring, more open minded to possible new approaches. Men tend to be more loyal no matter the discomfort this misguided loyalty may be.

Ours is a web based business. As such, women are said to prefer cleaner sites. In other words, a simple site that allows them to complete a transaction without the sensory overload. This is consistent with their solution based mentality.

Men's attention spans may necessitate flashing ads and numerous links as a means to lead him towards unintended buys.

The battle of the sexes is everywhere and ongoing. I find it interesting when you stumble across marked differences for the same objective.

Our business was created with these concepts in mind. We offer a clean clutter free website that allows for quick orders and even produces an automatic savings. It's an interesting and smarter way to buy office supplies online.