1. Don’t Stereotype Women: Designing Ecommerce
Experiences For Women Shoppers (Part 2)
Women control 65 % (about $20 trillion) of global consumer spending. By 2014, the World Bank
predicts that the global income of women will grow by more than $5 trillion. In both emerging
markets and developed nations, women's power of influence extends well beyond the
traditional roles of family and education to government, business, and the environment. They
make the final decision for buying 91 % of home purchases, 65 % of the new cars, 80 % of
health care choices, and 66 % of computers.
A handful of forward-thinking companies with product lines that were historically considered
male-dominated, such as electronics and automotive, are starting to redirect their design and
messaging at women.
For the most part, though, the average female consumer still feels under-represented and
misunderstood, and her power and influence is woefully under acknowledged--or just plain
ignored--by most service and product companies. She may be buying, but for the most part,
she's not getting the experiences she wants.
Women have become the digital mainstream. Women are online gamers, shoppers, bloggers,
and social media consumers. And yet, we still don’t know how to design for them.
© Rupa Shankar
www.cxpdesign.com

2. Here are 5 ways to create meaningful experiences for women shoppers:
Design for discoverers: We know that women spend significantly more amount of time online
than men. Research process involves discovery and exploration. So ecommerce experiences for
women must be designed to encourage discovery. One of the successful examples of this is
Pinterest. Delightful imagery and photography, rich colors and white spaces give the feeling of
being unrushed, unhurried.
Don’t pink it: The immediate impulse when designing for women is to “pink it,” meaning
products are splashed with the color pink (unless your brand is Victoria’s Secret), and content
and messaging are dumbed down. But women want what’s relevant to them. They want
products and online experiences that are intuitive, not insulting to their intelligence. They want
function, not frills.
Design for influencers: Women make or influence 80% of consumer purchases in US. Women
are big influencers. They are constantly sharing opinions. They share information, they rate,
rank, review experiences. They don’t just always buy for themselves. They influence other
people’s purchases. They buy on behalf of other people such as family or friends. Women have
a lot of clout when it comes to making or influencing a purchase. Hence, facilitate the sharing of
content on your website easily.
Design for inspired shoppers: Men are more purpose-driven shoppers unlike women who are
more possibility-driven shoppers. Men then to inform themselves via search engines or
comparison shopping sites before buying. Wmen are often inspired by catalogues, pictures or
recommendation of friends. Hence, design of ecommerce sites targeted at women should have
an abundance of visual material that inspires as well as social tools integrated into the
experience that allows them to access recommendations from friends easily.
Design for value-driven shoppers: Women shoppers tend to use coupons and deals more than
men. It is important to highlight this in the design scheme. Price information, discounts, sale
items should be easy to find and easy to apply to help complete purchase.
© Rupa Shankar
www.cxpdesign.com

3. About CXP Design
CXP Design (www.cxpdesign.com), founded by Rupa Shankar, is a platform for marketers,
technologists, designers and leaders to discuss and gain a deeper understanding of cross-channel
customer experience design, develop empathy for customer needs and learn how to create
products and services that deliver "wow" experiences for customers.
When we check into a hotel. When we shop on-line. When we buy a pair of shoes. When we get on
a flight. These are experiences by which we measure brands every day. However, most companies
are without the tools to purposefully design those experiences for maximum value. That’s where
CXP Design comes in.
Day in, day out, we live, sleep, eat, breathe and unravel the riddle that is human experience, leading
to more loyal and committed customers for our clients.
www.cxpdesign.com
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http://in.linkedin.com/groups/CXP-Design-Creating-Customer-Wow-4726523
Rupa is an Associate Director at Happiest Minds Technologies (www.happiestminds.com), a next-
generation IT Services & Solutions company at the forefront of Providing Advisory, Implementation and
Managed Services on Social computing, Mobility, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud computing,
Security and Unified Communications. At Happiest Minds, Rupa is responsible for uncovering and
activating innovative digital and social engagement strategies for its clients, spearheading the
development of frameworks and solutions for different industry verticals and enhancing the global go-to-
market strategy. She taps into her past work as both a design practitioner and marketer to help Happiest
Minds clients envision and define broad, end-to-end customer experiences.
© Rupa Shankar
www.cxpdesign.com