Did Your Mother Design Your Website?

Why the Hell Not?

Australian women are big shoppers online, especially mums and housewives, so if your website isn’t designed to appeal to them you could be losing out.

Marketers have long known that women control the purse strings in most households and that they also love to shop.

Recent research has shown that this spending power has gravitated naturally to the web.

Women of all ages have flocked online to shop.

Especially women over 45 who have both financial and social power to look for and get what they want.

Known variously as Queenagers, wedgers or Generation Jones, they represent a very powerful online demographic.

According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald there are 2.2 million of them online in Australia. Queenagers Rule the Web

And the NAB’s recent report said that Australian  housewives shopping online grew by 20% for the past year. Housewives Boost Online Shopping

Tie Your Mother Down

So the question online marketers, designers and developers need to ask themselves is:

“Does this ad, website or app appeal to my mother?”

If you’re not sure, then take your latest design or campaign around to your Mum’s place, fire up the laptop or iPad and ask her to try it out.

Some of you are cringing at the very thought of doing this, and that’s exactly the point. If your Mum can’t respond to it and use it successfully then you’ve failed.

Such a powerful demographic group may be a challenge to an industry that is often dominated by the young and technically inclined, always fascinated by the latest shiny techno ball.

However, designing and developing websites may need to be outsourced to a mother’s business collective if we are to truly build successful online shopping sites.

As management legend Tom Peters has repeatedly said older people are now rich enough and grumpy (empowered?) enough to demand whatever they want and expect to get it. If they don’t, they simply take their business elsewhere.

Sisters are Buying it for Themselves

However, it’s not just older women; women of all ages are big consumers on the web.

As these recent posts show both clothes and cosmetics make up two of the most lucrative areas of online shopping.

Clothes: The Fastest Growing Ecommerce Market

Online Retail: Where the money is

Mothers Fuel Online Sales Growth

Nor are these trends confined to Australia, they are global.

In the US

Think about that last stat when planning a word of mouth or viral campaign.

These stats come from a fantastic post by Ekaterina Walter over at The Next Web called The top 30 stats you need to know when marketing to women

It includes plenty of amazing stats such as women account for over $7trillion of consumer spending and make or influence over 85% of all purchasing decision.

As one of my former guru’s once said:

“Women are driving the bus, but us males just haven’t realised it yet.”