Women Sex and Shopping (WSS)
Women Sex and Shopping (WSS) is, as the title suggests, mainly concerned with the complex interaction between women’s sexual behaviours, expectations and desires and the goods that they buy or the marketing and merchandising that they react to.
The complexity works both ways. Some goods that women can buy affect behaviours, moods, self-perceptions, relationships and beyond doubt, quality of life. Into this category we can place Lingerie, Fragrance and Beauty, Oils and Lubricants, Shoes, Chocolates, Luxury Fetish, Sex Toys and Erotica, Beds and Bed Linen and many other items that could arguably be included.
The WSS research carried out by Hewson Group suggests that there is a critical dysfunction in the way that retailers and brands recognise and act on this complexity. The last fifteen years have seen power shift inexorably to the female consumer at the same time as an unprecedented evolvement of genuine female sexual emancipation (at least in Western economies). The majority of product marketing unequivocally recognises this; adverts for lingerie and fragrance – particularly - play upon glamour, seduction, empowerment and fantasy. With the exception of some ‘own brand’ stores, retail environments (both bricks and mortar and Internet) seldom match up to the marketing promise and offer sterile and un-involving places to shop with underwhelming fantasy or immersive elements. Above all, retailers and goods producers fail to understand female psychology in terms of how products inter-relate and how contemporary stores might be said to have a closer empathy with the paradigms of the 1950’s than the expectations of today. The WSS report provides a rich insight into what women want from their shopping experience and how they see the future of stores, websites and products. Extensive and unique research allows WSS to explain behaviours and causal linkages that are critical in uderstanding women consumers.
The Women Sex and Shopping Top 50 Pleasure Goods List was devised as a means of illustrating a point. It accurately reflects the product universe that women describe to us (although everyone will have different variations). Most experienced retailers will see immediately the implications for retail strategies, for store design and product innovation. Perhaps most importantly the Top 50 products support the WSS research in illuminating a consumer perspective that has been seriously under-estimated.
The List
Marvellous Pink Corset50 best products representing the entire Pleasure Goods range. View the complete list.
The Report
Women’s Pleasure Goods is likely to prove, globally, one of the most important retail sectors of the next decade but today it’s little understood and largely dysfunctional. Find out why.
Women Sex and Shopping (WSS) is a research project run by market analyst company Hewson Group.
WSS is the only research of it's kind and analyses a key marketplace that has many implications for the way women will shop and the sort of retail environments they would most prefer.
Hewson Group is a market analyst company established on 1989 and widely regarded as one of the inititiators of the CRM (customer management) industry as well as being a key influence on e-government programmes globally. Buy the report.