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INTERVIEW PHIL POND A Woman’s Intuition


In this day and age, the decisions to choose everything from the decor to the floor for households, increasingly fall upon women. Here, Phil Pond, Consumer Insights Manager for Scarlett Opus Ltd, discusses how you can take advantage of ‘a woman’s touch’ in the retail sector.


More than 85% of purchasing decisions made about interiors and interior products are made by women, and yet most retail experiences in this sector (much closer to ‘all retail experiences’ in the fl ooring sector) are focused on a male customer’s attitudes, needs and mindset... why?


You may not agree with me, but you cannot disagree with the fact that there is still a massive disconnect between the female consumer and the fl ooring industry. Maybe if I tackle the issue from a different angle, we can start to make the huge shift required and fl ooring retailers (particularly with respect to carpet) could look forward to a future where fl ooring is once again seen as ‘a key’ element of an interior makeover.


Let’s talk about selling, sales and the salespeople of the industry. There are a few women sales people in the fl ooring sector, but there is room and a powerful case to be made in favour of making great effort to attracting many more women to the role. Let’s state now that there are a few men selling fl ooring that ‘get it’, and do a very good job. But, let’s face it, they too are just a few. In my opinion, having experienced many secret shopper trips across the UK, Europe and the USA, UK male salespeople of fl ooring like to get to the ‘nuts and bolts’ quite quickly, talking about brands, carpet weights, construction types, prices per m² and where the carpet is going. Now, I accept the importance of having such knowledge, but the issue lies with when to display it.


A female salesperson will focus immediately on having empathy with the customer and becoming her


‘trusted advisor’ long before she wants to show off her in depth knowledge of fl ooring. She will understand that her customer wants to talk about the overall décor scheme, wanting opinion (not solutions) about what might fi t-in from a colour, look, feeling stance. Much more signifi cantly, she will know – instinctively some would suggest – how to talk about colour and pattern, knowing what patterns mix and how to match colours. She will sensibly sit with the customer and look through wallpaper books and interior design magazines, whilst referring to fl ooring she has in mind that might go with the scheme. A woman will know how the female customer thinks and feels, while of course understanding that she’s there to provide opinion not solutions.


The female sales person will naturally show a genuine passion for the customer’s overall interior project; whereas the men are passionate about the fl oor and making the sale. Now, your natural reaction to this is likely to shout at the page: “A man can do all of that!” However, let me say that whilst I agree with your ‘can’ or ‘could’, the fact is they don’t! As I’ve said, in fl ooring retail, our POS displays, pricing displays, shop layouts and product offers simply aren’t evolving to meet the shopping experience the female customer desires. My heartfelt recommendation to you, based on experience, is that if you want to secure the future of your fl ooring retail business then employ female sales staff and let them do the job in a way that might be considered ‘indirect’, but which will most certainly work and lift sales.


There is no reason why men couldn’t learn to sell this way, respect the


16 | Autumn 2014 Tomorrow’s Retail Floors


More than 85% of purchasing decisions made about interiors and interior products are made by women.


consumer for who she is and provide the shopping experience she longs for. But, we’d need to learn ‘how’ from a woman, which means that we’d have to appoint lots of female sales managers and trainers – now there’s an idea, or at least a subject for another article.


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