Are Dealerships treating women fairly?
Friday, June 13th, 2008News Flash – More women are in charge of car purchasing decisions! Yep. That’s right. Read it online somewhere. Maybe even heard it on the news. Also read that more women buy cars then men. Hmm? Isn’t the ratio of women to men higher?
When I was in college I took a statistics class. I believe I was taught that some surveys question as little as 100 people to draw statistical data. Doesn’t seem like enough if the end result will be applied to millions of people. And what about the questions and the people answering them. Ever heard of a survey being done for one group of people and then being applied to another group?
It comes as no surprise to me that more women are either buying cars or being the one in a marriage who makes the decsision. This is 2008 afterall, not 1958. Women have come a long way in the last 50 years. There are more women in the workforce and less stay at home mothers. And what about those women who have a job (or two or three), take care of the children and the house, run errands, take the kids to soccer practice or ballet or whatever. Seems obvious that these women are in the car a lot so why wouldn’t they be the one buying the car they need.
Yet there is still a problem with women buying cars. Or more specifically, a problem between women and car salesmen. Seems that women are intimidated by those slick, aggressive sales guys. In fact, one article stated that 77% of women plan to bring a man with them the next time they buy a vehicle. While another states that men prefer a women salesperson and women prefer male a salesperson.
As more women buy cars is it no surprise that dealerships should start to change their habits and try to attract more women buyers? In yesterdays tellinitlikeitis.com blog, the author gives some advice on how to sell a car to a women. Advice like, “Ask for and use my name”, “Use direct eye contact”, “Listen to me carefully”, and my favorite, don’t disrupt the conversation to answer your cell phone. That’s one a lot of people should follow if you ask me. But truthfully, aren’t these rules that any good salesperson, male or female, should know?
Maybe, and I’m just speculating here, but maybe it’s actually the salesmen who are intimidated by the women. We all know that todays buyers are more informed when they walk onto the sales floor. In fact, according to this Ask Angela article, women spend an average of forty-two hours researching a car, whereas men spend only eight hours. Seems to me that anyone who would spend that much time researching a car certainly knows what they’re looking for.
With the downturn of sales recently, doesn’t it make sense for salesmen to finally wake up and realize that women expect a different sales experience than the average male buyer? If not, well it’s time to wake up! If not, all of your female buyers will be rushing to smartwomenbuycars.com, where they won’t have to deal with any aggressive salesmen.
