Considering The Mom Factor
There’s $2 trillion in Mom’s purse. Here’s why shopping center owners and retailers should look to mothers for marketing.
Nora Lee

I am a Mom and shopping is big part of my job description. I am undeniably the most valuable target demographic for retail. Numbers alone ought to wake you up to the wisdom of listening to Mom, but there are many other reasons. Let’s just get the basic facts out of the way first:  Yes, almost all Moms are women. And, yes, we know an awful lot about women and their buying habits. For example, women make 80 to 88 percent of the buying decisions in this country — in business and for the home. Women outspend men in just about every category:  We spend more on electronics — $11 billion more. We make or influence 85 percent of car buying decisions. We make 90 percent of vacation decisions — from where to go to how to get there and what to do while we’re there. We’re behind most of the trips to museums, theatrical events, zoos and aquariums. We make or influence 93 percent of real estate buying decisions. It is clear that women, as an economic force, are a power to be reckoned with.

But Moms are different from women. Dealing with them as potential customers requires understanding some things that are easily quantified and many more that are not. For example, according to the U.S. Census, 82 million women in the United States are Moms; 32 million of us have kids at home. One group estimates that Moms in the U.S. spend almost $2 trillion a year buying for their families. For a little perspective — that’s equal to the buying power of the United Kingdom. Personally, I think it’s much more. I do know we control billions just in family entertainment spending. And don’t forget, when we buy, we buy for an average of more than three people.

Less easy to quantify, and therefore more problematic for marketers, is Mom’s circle of influence. If you sit and listen to Moms talking in the park, at the museums, or in Starbucks, they are trading buying tips. You’ll hear things such as:  “Did you know that you really can buy size 13 Nikes at Famous Footwear?” or “I found the best place for children’s gymnastics!” or “I finally found healthy take-out at the Thai restaurant up the block. It’s fabulous!”  Clearly, we are the word of mouth everyone craves. In addition, we affect brand loyalty in our kids, family members and friends. Often, that brand loyalty extends over generations. I bought Tide detergent until I was over 40 years old because my mom bought Tide and I was afraid of what she would think if I switched. And finally, and maybe most importantly, when Moms are unhappy about something, everybody knows about it. Never forget that if Mom loves you, she’ll tell 10 people, but if you make her angry, she’ll tell 100.

Clearly, Mom has a lot of money to spend and many choices on how to spend it. To distinguish yourself as a retailer in order to attract her and get her to become a loyal customer, the all-important first step is to understand why and how Mom shops. The next is to understand the circumference of Mom’s circle of influence in the marketplace. Finally, you must listen to Mom.

The Shopping Continuum

For Moms, shopping is a continuum. On one end is the kind of necessary shopping that goes on the To-Do list:  Target, Wal-Mart, Costco. On the other end of the continuum is shopping just for fun, say at The Venetian in Las Vegas or Downtown Disney. One step up from Target might be traditional mall shopping. One would still find this kind of shopping on the To-Do list, but a mall would offer a few more amenities and greater selection, if not convenience or the lowest price. Near the other end of the continuum, the fun end, is shopping at a lifestyle center like The Grove in Los Angeles. It’s not the first stop when Mom needs to buy shoes for the kids, but she can go there on a weekend for dinner and a movie and some leisurely shopping. And, of course, there are a dozen different experiences in between.

To-Do Shopping

My research indicates that for most mothers, especially ones with young children, most shopping is neither pleasant nor particularly unpleasant. It simply has to be done. Let’s look at this drudge stuff first, because it’s something we all deal with, it’s regular and time-consuming, and it has its own set of challenges for Mom. Just so you understand, we don’t expect nor really want this kind of shopping to be entertaining. Most days, we just want it to be done.

So what does a mother look for when she is To-Do shopping, and where does she go?  From my own survey and others’, it is clear that most Moms are looking for anything that makes their lives easier, no matter what they’re shopping for. That means they want good customer service and good value — quality, price and selection. In other words, they are no different from any other shopper. These characteristics form the Holy Grail of any shopping experience along the whole continuum. Ideally, we’d like it all, all the time. But on the To-Do end, we are often willing to sacrifice customer service for better value. This partly explains why the women in my survey chose Target, Wal-Mart and Kmart as their favorite family retail stores.

These stores offer a huge selection of merchandise types. For Moms, huge selection means loading the kids into and out of the car one time, not three. It means I can buy toothpaste, juice boxes, razor blades, T-shirts, Nerf guns, dog food, garbage bags, light bulbs, lipstick and a new Dixie Chicks CD in one stop. Anything that saves precious time without too much pain will get a thumbs-up. As Faith Popcorn says, “Time is the new money:  people would rather spend money than time.”  The only major complaint about these value and convenience heavens from the Moms I surveyed — and it was almost universal — was that the customer service is lousy.

Besides better customer service, ideas for improvement that come up often in motherly descriptions of shopping experiences are maneuverability (Moms are often pushing something with wheels), stocking shelves well, honoring sale ads, and making returns easy. None of this is news to retailers. At least, none of it should be. But those who know about the problems don’t appear to be doing enough about them if Moms are still citing them as impediments to shopping. Think about the possibilities for the retailer who can remove those impediments.

The Other Kind of Shopping

There’s a second kind of shopping that is fun and entertaining. You can identify this type simply by asking a few questions, such as:  “Is this shopping trip on my To-Do list?” If the answer is no, then chances are you’re shopping for fun. “Do I have a schedule to meet?” If the answer is no, not really, then that also indicates shopping for fun.

When a survey by the Travel Industry Association of America reveals that 63 percent of people on vacation shop, the first question that comes to my mind is, “Why?”  It’s clear that Americans spend an awful lot of each week shopping. Why would they choose to do so on their vacation?  For me, the distinction is clear. If I’m on vacation and I choose to shop, the pleasure comes from the pace, the selection, and the unique shops (or at least ones that are different from those I normally go to). Most importantly, shopping on vacation becomes a way of making and sharing memories, so I’m much less concerned about value. Or at least the typical monetary definition of value. The value I’m searching for on vacation is less tangible.

Think of your first trip Disneyland. Doesn’t everyone who goes to Disneyland buy a hat?  I would bet that most often they buy Mickey Mouse ears of some variety. Who in their right mind would wear those ears after they have left the park?  But most of us keep those ears buried in a closet somewhere, and whenever we run across them, the ears dredge up all sorts of wonderful memories, and a smile crosses our face. That is their value. The ears become a touchstone to a memorable and authentic event we shared with people we love, and we’ll keep them forever. Have you ever seen Mickey Mouse ears in a yard sale?

We also like to share special moments with those who can’t be there with us, so we buy presents when we’re on vacation. If Granddad couldn’t come with us, then we send him a silly T-shirt or a rubber lizard with pink sunglasses to let him know we were thinking of him. We also special-occasion shop in this relaxed atmosphere, buying early Christmas or birthday presents. And this is one time when Moms feel reasonably comfortable rewarding themselves. The retailer who helps persuade Mom that it’s okay to indulge herself reaps rewards for the accomplishment.

The good feelings associated with shopping on vacation, which comes but once a year for most folks, help explain the throngs of people who flock to The Grove in Los Angeles on a weekly basis. Places like The Grove, most of them built since the late 1990s, manage to tap into that feeling of vacation freedom by making shopping part of the entertainment. The new breed of lifestyle centers, with their emphasis on architecture, food and entertainment, do make a difference in the shopping experience. It’s here that shopping really does become entertainment.

Not unexpectedly, though, some of the most wonderful shopping experiences are in stores that are owned and operated locally — the Mom and Pop venues. They are the very stores whose success can portend the upward mobility of a formerly borderline business district. And they are the stores that move on to the next almost-trendy area when the rents skyrocket and only large retailers like Gap and J. Crew can afford them. Still, they can offer exceptional shopping experiences for Moms — primarily in the level of customer service they offer. In a crowded marketplace with little difference in price point, small and medium-size businesses can carve out their own niche by offering the highest levels of customer service.

We women are emotional creatures, and Moms more than others. If you can create a place that makes an emotional connection to Mom, engages all her senses, caters to her just a little, takes her off her usual treadmill, and welcomes her children, then you are approaching that Disneyland feeling of an authentic and memorable experience. Moreover, not coincidentally, research suggests that brands that engage people emotionally can command prices 20 to 200 percent higher than competitors, and sell in far higher volumes.

A couple of national examples of stores that engage all our senses are Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Both these grocery stores have discovered that telling a story while selling cheese or wine or cookies is a great way to help consumers make decisions. If I’m shopping for cheese, for example, and pick up an artisan cheese with a label that tells the story of a man who learned to make cheese from his Italian grandmother and I compare that to one from a national dairy, which cheese am I going to buy?

In short, Moms who shop are interested in good customer service, good value (and that doesn’t always mean lowest price), efficiency (especially for the To-Do list), a comfortable space, and an emotional connection. Determine where your business is on the shopping continuum, and then, ask  Mom what she needs, what she wants, and what she dreams of. To benefit from The Mom Factor, all you need to do  is listen to your Mom. scb

This article was adapted for Shopping Center Business by Nora Lee, author of The Mom Factor:  What Really Drives Where We Shop, Eat, and Play, published by the Urban Land Institute. Lee is currently speaking to and consulting with businesses who want to get into Mom’s purse. See www.momfactor.com for more information. Or email her at nora@momfactor.com.