Secrets of The Male Shopper

I love shopping. (Liar!)

Business Week article this week (good read!): new approaches to address the man’s market.

It all starts by understanding why, what and how today’s men shop — some do it for getting the “mission” done, but some do it for fun; some only shop for basic man’s products, but the others even buy groceries, baby-related, and grooming products.

A number of factors contribute to this behaviour. First: new roles of man & woman (e.g, working mom, house-husband. Then the average age for getting married and rate of divorce are increasing, thus single, young or mature, man (and woman. actually) are growing.
Not so long ago, the metrosexual thing is so hot. These are men getting in touch with their feminime side (not gay!): more sensitive, caring, etc. To contrast with a typical macho man: the retrosexual.

Business Week mentions that “marketers have been missing half the male population; they’re finally paying attention.” Because, only 20% of the man population are metrosexuals. The other 20% are retrosexuals. The rest are in between: The Maturiteen, The Modern Man, The Dads.

Is it new? Has anything changed nowadays?

Yes and no.

The behaviour might have changed during the last decade… I love shopping more nowadays. But still I think the producers in Indonesia haven’t react much to the changing market. (Global/US companies haven’t too). I do see some male grooming products… but the shopping centers, the malls, attracts more female rather than male.

Business Week have put a nice article here, with a lot of good examples, findings, etc. Few years ago, Hermawan & MarkPlus launched their research “Metrosexuals in Venus” with one of the finding: segmentation of male market. I can not remember, though, what are the content and if they have updated the results with the recent trends in our market.

Marketing is about choosing the values that attract your (male) customers; remembering that there are different customers (segments) that are attracted by different value. Choose wisely, communicate them, and deliver them.