The Truth About Big Businesses And How You Spend | HMM 42

EPISODE 42

[INTRO MESSAGE]

[00:00:08] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Her Money Matters Podcast, the podcast to help you take control of your finances. Join your host, motivational money coach, Jen Hemphill, as she shares with you practical, simple money insights and real life stories by women like you. Let’s get to it.

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:27] JH: Hey there, this is Jen Hemphill. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Recently, one of our listeners named Brittney left a comment over on the show notes on how she loved episode 38 and how she listened to it on her run. So I know granted that with podcasts you can listen to them everywhere, but it just struck my curiosity as to what is the most common place that you listen to this podcast? Is it on your way to work, doing some household stuff? I would absolutely love to know.

And you can hop over to our free Facebook community on Facebook. You can send me an email or you can leave me a comment on the show notes. That would be awesome just to know. Also, if you are tired of trying to what seems to be just about everything with your finances but nothing seems to stick or work, I really invite you to try out our Fearless Money Sisterhood for one full month for just one dollar. And you can do that at jenhemphill.com/podcastdollartrial. All the details and everything on getting you signed up is all right there.

So let’s talk about today’s topic and why I wanted to cover this. Back in episode 40, so two episodes ago, we talked about impulse spending and we talked about some tips on how to help minimize this. So if you haven’t listened to episode 40, I definitely encourage you to listen to that episode. Now, there is another side. So there’s the impulse spending, the part that our self, something inside us, triggers us to make a purchase.

Now there’s the other side, the other dynamic that we didn’t cover in that episode because it really needed a whole episode in itself in my opinion. And that is how different businesses market to us because that’s another part, them marketing to us. They market to us through emotion and other things to get us to buy because they spend big dollars on doing that and that’s another part that triggers us to make a purchase. So one part is us, within us, what triggers within us and the other triggers come from outside, from those businesses, from the advertisements that you see.

So this episode is really not about how to do this or what you should do but rather I’m just going to give you some information for just awareness. So that way the next time that you are at the mall, at the grocery store, you are aware of these tactics or these ways that they do this. So that way you say, “Oh”, you catch that in action and that will help also minimize the extra spending that you may want to do.

So in today’s episode, I’m going to share with you the crazy spending power that we as women have that will literary make your head spin. I’m also going to share with you three different ways that we are marketed to and why it matters and I’m going to go off in a small rant specifically on Kohl’s, Target and Amazon so you don’t want to miss that one. Before I do that, I wanted to give a quick shout out to one of our Her Money Matters members.

Her name is Irene and she’s all the way in the UK and I have to share with you, Irene is just pure joy. She’s super supportive, she’s not afraid to share even some of her fears, she’s friendly and I really lover her willingness to just jump in the group not necessarily knowing anyone and engaging and being supportive, cheering people on. So Irene, I really appreciate you in our group and what you have brought to the group. So I just wanted to share that with you.

Now, for today’s show to start off with, let’s talk about some statistics on women and their spending power. Did you know that women account for 85% of all consumer purchases? That includes everything from cars to healthcare and granted you probably thought, you know, this probably doesn’t surprise you as far as it’s a significant amount, right? But what’s really interesting for me is some of the breakdowns.

I’m not going to give you all of them because I don’t want this podcast just to be reading on some stats but what I find interesting was the purchases of new cars, women were accounted for 65% so I thought that was interesting because I thought maybe it will be lower but it’s not and the other one that I thought was interesting was PC. So computers, 66% but of course food was in the 93% and one that was surprising, the total online spending by women was 58% and I thought it was going to be higher.

So that was interesting, and in America it’s estimated that women, the spending power of women is in between $5 trillion to $15 trillion annually. That’s a little bit of money right there, so this is why. When big brands, when big business they do a lot of research because they’re not just going to pay a lot of money for advertisement without doing their research, without doing their due diligence.

So this is a part of their research and that is a part of why they spend so much money marketing specifically to women because they know that women account for anywhere between $5 trillion to $15 trillion of spending power annually. That’s a lot of money so if they put a lot of money towards this advertisement and marketing towards women and those ads are effective, that marketing is effective, that means they’re making some money, right?

And that’s essentially what they’re there to do. They’re there for you to take out your pocket book, your purse, take out the car, take out your cash, hand it over to them so they can make their money, right? They’re a business to make money. So we are marketed to, there’s three ways that stood out to me on how we’re marketed to and I’m sure there’s other ways but I am no expert here. I just wanted to share the ones that stood out for me.

So one way that we are well aware of are different pricing models. So there is discounts for example when things go out of season. So each time Christmas is over, all the lights, all the decorations, they have huge discounts on those, anything that is seasonal right? There is also pricing models where you buy three items for a certain price. That’s another pricing modelling.

There’s more pricing models that I’m not going to get into but that is just one way. The pricing model is definitely a way of how we’re marketed to because maybe, you’ve seen multiple items for a certain price triggers your urge to buy, right? So it’s just important to know. Another way is using psychology. Brands and businesses, they’re not going to — like for example, Apple is not going to sell you a laptop, they have a Mac Book Pro based on using words, “Oh, it’s got…” I don’t know how much memory and obviously, I’m not a computer pro and obviously I am not using the correct lingo.

But rather they’re going to sell it to you in a way that matters to you. So maybe the ease of use of how easy it is to use. Maybe it’s how light, well it’s a Mac Book Pro so I think it’s a little heavier, they’ll use words that are more based on emotion maybe. How it might make your life easier, all those different things. So they market to you based on emotion. Other companies will highlight their own flaws. So it’s a way to raise their credibility, so they’ll highlight a flaw and then show you how they solve it.

They also reposition competition, right? For example, Jif is a great example. You’ve heard that saying, “Choosy moms chose Jif,” and who doesn’t want to be a none choosy mom? You want to be a part of that choosy moms so therefore, if you are a choosy mom you chose Jif. So it just repositions how you should buy from them. Others promote exclusivity, so American Express, they say membership has it’s privileges. The US Marines talk about the few and the proud, right?

And another way that they use psychology to market to you is fear, doubt, uncertainty and a huge, I think a great example of that is the campaign that’s going on right now for the presidential election. Another way to market that I really found fascinating that I knew a little bit about because you see the for sale signs in red so you know that has something to do with it but I really found it fascinating. So some of the stats, and I won’t read you all of them, but it shows that almost 85% of consumers say that color is the primary reason they buy a particular product.

So it makes you think. It makes you wonder when you purchase an item. Was it because of the color? Is it mainly because of that or maybe the color added something that triggered you to take out that wallet and purchase that item, so I thought that was interesting buy even more interesting is the breakdown of the different colors, and so I’ll be sure to share links on these different articles that I found that I thought were pretty good that you can take a look at.

So in this one particular article, they showed they broke down the buyer by an impulse shopper, frugal shoppers, and traditional shoppers, okay? And so with impulse shoppers, they use the colors of red orange, black and royal blue. And then for frugal shoppers, they use navy and teal. And then for traditional buyers, they use pink, sky blue, and rose. Really, I challenge you the next time you go shopping and you find yourself buying something take a look at the colors and see if that aligns to what you consider yourself to be whether an impulse shopper especially of that particular purchase was an impulse, take a look at what color. Whether the signage was on the particular item, just take a look and that would be an interesting thing to notice.

So those are what I wanted to share with you because just being aware of those things can help you and minimize that extra spending especially if you know, “Oh they are using this red orange and I’m an impulse shopper and they’re using that because they know if I’m an impulse shopper, I’m going to purchase this.” So just some interesting information. Again, I’ll leave you all those links in the show notes. If you want to dig deeper on that.

So on my small rant — oh my goodness. So on Kohl’s. I wanted to talk about Kohl’s, the Kohl’s cash. You go to Kohl’s, they have certain days or certain time periods where if you go purchase, you get some Kohl’s cash back right? What I don’t like is how quickly. Of course, their incentive is they give you some money for you to go back and make some purchases which makes complete sense but it expires really quickly.

So I thought, it just came to my brain that a smart way to use the Kohl’s cash is instead of going to Kohl’s making all of your purchases that you are planning on making, plan it out where you only make a certain number of purchases enough to get this Kohl’s cash and you can use that $10 or whatever it is towards your next purchase because I never seem to think that far ahead but just some food for thought there.

The other portion is if you’re a Kohl’s card holder, you get a flyer every so often and it used to be scratch off and now, it’s just a peel or maybe it’s always been a peel sticker where you peel off and it will reveal what kind of discount you’re going to get for next time that you enter the store and between those time frames and between those dates. But what I found recently is that let’s say that week, everybody gets that same discount.

So it’s just another way of them keeping you in suspense as to how much of a discount but it drives me nuts. It drives me nuts now that I know that everybody is going to get 20% that week. It drives me absolutely nuts. Target, what gets on my nerves in Target, as much I love you Target is you’re at the register, you are making your purchase, they give you your receipt and in the receipt comes out a coupon for something that you just bought. Of course, it’s intended for you to use when you come back again so you can buy that item but it makes no sense to me.

It just drives me absolutely nuts where I could have used it for that particular coupon. I want the savings now. I don’t want it tomorrow right? That’s how I feel. Anyway, so that’s one that drives me nuts. And the other part, it happens at Target, it happens at many stores is the signs of, “This is two for $5,” and it gets your attention because you have that fear of missing out, right? So you go because it is something that you usually buy, let’s say.

Then you’re all excited and then you realized it’s not a sale. It’s normally, each item is $2.50 each but it gets your attention. That’s another way that they catch your attention. They do everything to see if they can trigger for you to take your wallet out and Amazon. I do love shopping on Amazon but there are some things that drive me nuts on Amazon.

One is I notice some things that let’s say I go back and buy again. You cannot take that item for granted that price. So what you do, what I have been doing is instead of saying, “Hey, I’m going to repurchase,” because usually what I will do is I’ll go to past orders. I’ll take a look at the item that I want and naturally, the easiest thing to do is to say, “Reorder”, right? You want to reorder that item. But you don’t want to take for granted that item is the cheapest price.

So what you want to do is you want to put whatever item that is and that search bar and see if you find that item less expensive or if it hasn’t change in price because since Amazon deals with all of these different merchants doesn’t mean that all their prices are going to be the same or that they don’t fluctuate. They fluctuate a whole lot so definitely, it drives me nuts. I wish I could hit “reorder”, but I’ve learned the hard way that I’ve paid more for an item when I could have bought it for less.

And the other thing that drives me nuts on Amazon is, if you make your purchases, you go to checkout and being a Prime member, you get free shipping even though you pay your membership but it’s worth the money in my opinion especially if you do a lot of shopping with Amazon because you save a lot of money on shipping. But anyways, you go to the checkout, they know you’re a Prime member but how did they automatically check the shipping charge? Meaning they’ll do next day shipping, it’s 10, $20 whatever it is versus automatically putting you in their free shipping. It makes no sense. So be careful with that.

I haven’t happened to me because I fortunately catch it but if you’re in a hurry because Amazon give you that. The ability to shop and it’s convenient. So sometimes you want to hurry up and click the buttons and make the purchase. Don’t do that because I have found that to be really annoying. I have to go and switch the shipping and if you have any tips on that maybe it’s something I’m doing wrong on my side? Let me know because it just automatically checks the shipping that you have to charge for or that you have to pay for.

Anyways, so those are my rants. I don’t know if you have experienced the same frustrations with those particular businesses but I just wanted to share that with you. I feel better now. So for a recap. Today, we talked about the crazy spending how we have as women and we talked about the three different ways that we are marketed to and why it matters. Why it matters is it allows you to be aware and it can help you minimize that extra spending that maybe you don’t need to be doing.

I also shared with you my small rant on Kohl’s, Target and Amazon, some of the places that I most frequently shop at and if you have a similar rant to mine, share it please because I love to hear what it is because I’m sure there’s other things that happen that are annoying as well. Definitely be sure to share with us on the comments, on the show notes or hop on over to our Facebook Group and share away.

So that is it for today. Don’t forget that if you are sick and tired of trying everything but nothing seems to work or nothing seems to stick with of what you’re doing, take the Fearless Money Sisterhood for a spin. It’s only a dollar for a full month. If you don’t like it, you can cancel it. You owe it to yourself to at least try. So you can get all those details and more at jenhemphill.com/podcastdollartrial.

So thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to tune into the show today. You can check out the show notes and all the links from the different stats and all that at Jenhemphill.com/40 so you can refer to everything that you need to know or if you want to check out more on the show.

So thanks again for listening and we’ll catch you again next Thursday.

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