How to get “her” to pay?

This article provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis, has a clear understanding of the current status of the "she economy", and puts forward practical suggestions. It is worth paying attention to. If you want to understand the current development trend of the "she economy" and how to create a female consumption scenario, entrepreneurs and operators are recommended to read this article.

"She Economy" has become a commercial force that cannot be ignored. Recently, at the 2023 BRICS Women's Leadership Forum, guests from the political and business circles said that women's power plays a positive role in the economic development of BRICS countries, and released the "BRICS Women's Development Report (2023)" at the meeting.

The report points out that with the increasing attention paid to women's topics in BRICS countries, women's contribution to social progress has become increasingly prominent, women's unique advantages in the workplace have gradually been recognized and discovered, and the "she economy" has achieved phased development.

Indeed, the "she economy" has entered a new stage. According to data released by iiMedia Research, the market size of China's "she economy" will reach 4.8 trillion yuan as early as 2020, and according to the latest data from the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, the current scale of China's "she economy" industry has exceeded 10 trillion yuan. So much so that there is a joke on the Internet: women can receive flowers on countless holidays a year, while men can only receive flowers on their death anniversary, which shows the importance of "she economy".

Therefore, "their" wallets have also become the object of competition among companies, but contemporary women are relatively breaking free from the control of consumerism, and their consumption is becoming more and more independent. In this regard, the Community Research Institute will discuss the changes in the "her economy" in the consumption sector and how to create consumption scenarios for women based on relevant female consumption research reports.

1. Keywords of her economy: self-satisfaction, family

"Consumption upgrade" is a long-term inevitable trend that accompanies social progress and economic development. The 19th CPC National Congress pointed out that socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and the main contradiction in our society has transformed into the contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and the unbalanced and inadequate development.

This fully demonstrates that people's demand for a better life is constantly developing and iterating. Therefore, female consumers' pursuit of quality life is also universal and long-term, and its concentrated embodiment is the word "self-pleasing".

Online consumption, as an indispensable consumption channel in modern commerce, affects the daily life and shopping of tens of millions of Chinese consumers. As the main customer group in the retail consumption market, women are naturally also the main force of online consumption.

In 2022, the transaction growth rate of female users of JD.com will be 5.5 percentage points higher than that of male users, becoming the "her power" leading consumption growth. Next, we will start from the online shopping scenario and analyze the self-pleasing characteristics of the "her economy" from a point-to-surface perspective.

Today’s women have a stronger sense of independence than in the past. Even after joining family life, they still strive to find an important balance between family and self. More and more “they” are not only wives to their husbands, but also mothers to their children, but more importantly, they are independent individuals.

While they pay attention to family consumption, they also pay attention to their own individual needs. Self-pleasing consumption is still an indispensable and important part of consumption among this group.

Judging from the year-on-year growth rate of transaction volume of female users on JD.com in 2022, the growth rates of nutrition and health care and jewelry remain the highest, which are important formats of self-pleasing consumption. Whether single women or women in families, health and exercise are the key concerns of consumption in the new era. During the epidemic, the growth rate of online jewelry consumption shows that female consumers have a consumption awareness of self-pleasing and even value preservation during economic fluctuations.

Of course, as a woman, family is a reality that can never be escaped or abandoned, so a large part of women's consumption revolves around family. In terms of age, the online shopping products of women aged 25-36 began to be placed in front of the baby crib. At this stage, female consumers began to enter the family, and the expenditure on milk powder, diapers and other items for raising the next generation increased rapidly.

In addition to self-pleasure, female consumers are also gradually shifting their focus of consumption to family. For consumers over 45 years old, family consumption takes precedence over self-pleasure consumption, and their largest investment shifts to daily necessities such as kitchen appliances, grains and oils.

However, "household consumption" is not simply "female consumption". JD.com's online data shows that some products and even women's clothing for women are not purchased entirely by female online users, but male users also account for a certain proportion. But overall, household consumption has become an important part of women's consumption expenditure.

In addition, "sports and health", "learning and improvement" and "pets" are also keywords in the "she economy". Taking "learning and improvement" as an example, the transaction volume of books by female users of JD.com also recorded high growth in 2022. Shopping for books is just a microcosm of female consumption in the field of learning.

In fact, more and more female consumers are beginning to focus on making efficient use of their limited leisure time for learning. The scientific and effective use of fragmented time will help female consumers stand out in the modern workplace and will also help the new generation of women achieve sustainable development throughout their life cycle.

In general, women enjoy shopping for themselves and their families. Female consumers are the absolute main force of online consumption and the key to triggering the craze for new online consumer products. Whether it is "pleasuring oneself" or "family", female consumers always play a vital role.

With the progress of society, the roles of highly educated women and working women are being strengthened, the female consumer group is paying more and more attention to long-term sustainable development, healthy consumption concepts are becoming popular in society, and novel consumption touchpoints are delivering online traffic.

Online consumption based on information exchange is strengthening its social attributes, bringing the trust of offline consumption to online. Women’s advantage in information interaction makes them not only the main force of consumption, but also the window of information transmission.

2. How to create a consumption scenario for women?

Female consumption content is characterized by diversity, complexity, outstanding individuality, continuous iteration, and rapid response. Female consumption plays an important role as the main output in all industries, including food, clothing, housing, transportation, travel, shopping, and entertainment, and in turn promotes the iterative development of consumer content and retail formats.

According to a report from JD Consumer and Industry Development Research Institute, female consumption shows six major trend characteristics: "brand + domestic products", "intelligence + technology", "green + health", "precision + function", "personality + customization" and "emotion + gender" . This provides a key basis for us to judge the future development of consumption and retail markets, and will also build the underlying logic of China's future female consumption.

We should create exclusive consumption scenarios for them, because consumption scenarios, as one of the three elements that determine consumer expenditure in the "consumption cycle system", have a decisive influence on the occurrence and frequency of consumer behavior. The creation of modern female consumption scenarios is related to the survival and development of physical retail business.

From the perspective of the "group", under the development trend of the female consumer base in the current economic cycle, women's demand for individuality, quality, and health is universal and long-term. Exclusive service scenarios for women, quality aesthetic visual scenarios, and healthy and friendly social scenarios are still the mainstream trend, which are also the main scenarios that major operators and brand owners are constantly creating and improving.

From the perspective of "individual", today's women's "need for knowledge" and "aesthetic needs" have entered a higher stage. They are no longer limited to traditional consumption scenes, and begin to pursue immersive scenes that can meet spiritual needs and provide emotional value. Therefore, the shaping of women's consumption scenes should start from exclusivity, visuality, and sociability.

First, we need to create exclusive consumption scenarios. When creating these scenarios, we can create a sense of exclusivity by carefully designing exclusive spaces for women (such as makeup-friendly scenarios and baby-friendly scenarios). We can also build an exclusive consumption service system for women. For example, we can refine and upgrade traditional service scenarios based on women’s material needs; and we can create new service scenarios with diversified personalities based on women’s psychological needs.

Secondly, we can create consumption scenarios that are visually preferred by women. Vision is the most important sense for humans to receive external information, and most information reception relies on vision. Men pay more attention to functions and parameters when purchasing goods, while women are more easily attracted by beautiful scenes, and are therefore more willing to pay for excellent ideas. We often see women taking photos at Internet celebrity check-in spots. Therefore, we should start from a visual perspective and create more consumption scenarios that women prefer.

Finally, the social attributes of female consumption scenarios are strengthened from multiple dimensions such as sports, emotions, and spirit. For example, Tea'stone, a new Chinese tea originated in Shenzhen, interprets traditional tea culture in a modern way through the creation of tea + retail + social space. According to relevant statistics, about 70% of customers are female consumers.

Female friends meet for afternoon tea, chat and maintain emotional connection. On Women's Day in 2023, Shanghai Xintiandi store launched the Spring Tea Party Set Meal, which combines Kao Peony or Ink Red Rose Tea with high-value Under the Rose pastries, which has both beauty and skin care effects and is deeply loved by female consumers.

In short, today's women have more and more individual labels, and embracing diversity is a symbol of the times. With the change of generations, they are defining their own lifestyles in their own way. Similarly, they jointly create the "her economy" and describe the value of the group to society, while the gold diggers of the "her economy" only need to shape the consumption scene according to their preferences.

Author: Editorial Department of Community Marketing Research Institute; Reviewer: lidaxia

Source: Community Marketing Research Institute (ID: Community_Marketing), insights into community consumption