In-store technology: the gender gap revealed

The old cliché about men hating shopping is beginning to become passé. Menswear is becoming more diverse, with the popularity of athleisure, streetwear, hipster fashion and Peaky Blinders style clothing providing a revival to the sector. According to Mintel, the men’s clothing market grew by 3.5% in 2017 to reach £15 billion and is now forecast to grow another 11% by 2022 to reach £17.1 billion.

Shopping for fashion has become a leisure activity for male and female consumers alike. In addition, Cybertill consumer research shows that men are more likely to want to use various types of new technology in stores than women (YouGov, 2018 and 2019 studies):

• 11% of men would want facial recognition software in-store to recognise them as a customer, compared to only 6% of women
• 44% of men would want till-less stores, in comparison to 32% of women
• 39% of men go to a physical store for face-to-face customer service in-store, compared to 30% of women
• Men are more likely to think that mobile POS or touch screen displays on the shop floor would enhance their shopping experience in-store – 49% of men compared to 38% of women researched

 

Menswear retailer (and Cybertill customer) Skopes has recently gone through a bold rebrand, which saw its logo and image shift to become more modern. The opening of two new digital-focused stores in Westfield London and Meadowhall, Sheffield, highlights just how much Skopes understand its current and prospective customers and what they expect.

Creating a relaxed and contemporary shopping experience, Skopes has made its stores destinations, embracing the omnichannel movement that appeals to its customer base. Installing tablets around the store for shoppers to search for and compile suits let people browse at their leisure, freeing up staff to help make suggestions and recommendations focusing on the customer.

Tablets and mobile POS (mPOS) are becoming more important in-store, bridging the gap between the physical and digital realms of retail. Providing opportunities to reduce stock holding in-store, transactional tablets let retailers create a tailored (pun intended) experience to each customer and become more flexible to how and where they are served.

So, how can you make your shop more attractive to male consumers?

Top tips for appealing to the menswear shopper:

• Consider integrating gamification into your website or app. In our research, when asked to consider what consumers would ideally want in a shopping application, men were three times as likely to want games than women.
• Experiment with tablets or mobile POS either in your shop or in a small format pop-up shop to offer a full product catalogue without stocking everything in-store.
• Have shop staff available to help on the shop floor! And ensure that they have the tools they need to offer a great service – drop shipping, full product details, stock look up and interbranch transfers.
• Create a loyalty scheme that provides real value to customers. Our research highlights that men are more likely to sign up to a loyalty program if the retailer offered discounts.

Check out how RetailStore works for fashion retailers here.