Men and Women Want the Same Thing in Grocery Shopping: What A Shocker!

I feel I can safely assume that most men and women hate grocery shopping equally. Now, new research has been released showing that men, in particular, shop inefficiently. How, oh how, can grocery retailers help these poor guys who, according to this TNS Retail Forward study: pretend the item was out of stock if they couldn't find it, tend to call their spouse for help while there, and dislike the self-serve checkout aisle because they don't like loyalty cards, among other things.

Insert eye roll here.

Uh...this is not necessarily a gender issue, but more likely an issue for people who don't do the grocery shopping as frequently. And, the inefficient behavior of the men studied is probably shared by a lot of women who: get just as frustrated when they can't find items, call their spouses to complain that they are even there at all, and are equally annoyed that they have to use loyalty cards.

Are consumer researchers running out of things to do? Are study findings made more exciting if a gender-specificity can be claimed? I can see it now: "Women Don't Like Mean People," or "Men Dislike Vacuuming."

Yes, there are differences in how men and women may buy, but for the most part we all want the same things. The idea is to serve the highest standard of customer experience. So, if the core customer in your market is a certain profile of a woman, but you also sell to many other women and men, create an experience (are you listening grocery retailers?) that your best customer loves and everyone else will appreciate it. If your core customer is a very discriminating male sailing fanatic (say -- he likes to sail Mason 44s), serve his every quirky need, and, lo and behold, a lot of other people who like to sail gorgeous boats will respond in kind.

As Mandy Putnam, Vice President and Director of ShopperScapes, Retail Forward's monthly shopper survey, put it in a webinar (according to a RetailWire article about the study written by Tom Ryan): "Lists are necessary evils and men need help dealing with them."

Is that sexism, or reverse sexism? I'm getting confused.