3 ms·

"Of the 24 retailers in the New York City report, the worst gender pricing disparity surfaced at Club Monaco, where women’s clothing cost an average of 28.9 per

"Of the 24 retailers in the New York City report, the worst gender pricing disparity surfaced at Club Monaco, where women’s clothing cost an average of 28.9 percent more than men’s clothing, according to an independent analysis by economist Ian Ayres. Urban Outfitters trailed with a 24.6 percent gender premium, followed by Levis with 24.3 percent." 24 is a very small sampling of retailers. What season was it? What was their methodology? I'd like to see a a table of the other 21 clothing retailers.

stephenitis 11y ago
The study: http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Study-of-Gender-Pricing-in-NYC.pdf http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Study-... http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dca/partners/gender-pricing-study.page http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dca/partners/gender-pricing-study.p... the nyc.gov summary has a useful summary here Over the course of a woman’s life, the financial impact of these gender-based pricing disparities is significant. In 1994, the State of California studied the issue of gender-based pricing of services and estimated that women effectively paid an annual “gender tax” of approximately $1,351 for the same services as men.12 While DCA’s study does not estimate an annual financial impact of gender pricing for goods, the findings of this study suggest women are paying thousands of dollars more over the course of their lives to purchase similar products as men.
- facepalm 11y ago
  One more reason to encourage women to learn maths. If they don't care enough to compare prices, they just have to pay more. Incidentally, this could also explain why there is a women's aisle to begin with: women seem to be willing to pay more, so it makes sense to differentiate your products to allow women to pay more.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    There's another factor here: interest. The women's department in clothing stores is almost always MUCH larger than the men's department. Women typically have a lot more clothes, and a shitload more shoes than men. They just spend a lot more on clothing than men do, on average. Let's compare that with another market: aftermarket automobile parts and accessories. How many women spend hundreds of dollars on a spoiler or carbon-fiber hood for their car, or thousands of dollars on new rims? Almost none? At best, you might find a small number of women getting fancy rims (usually just tomboyish women who are into trucks), but good luck finding any who buy exhaust headers, intakes, engine tunes, etc. Similarly, you also won't find many women purchasing automotive tools like socket wrench sets, air compressors and impact wrenches, etc.; there's a few but they're ones like my sister, who do it because they're extremely practical and want to save money (and usually stick to easy stuff like oil changes anyway), not because they enjoy spending time working on their vehicles. There's other markets like this, which largely cater to men and in which men spend lots of their disposable income. For men, these things are usually called "hobbies". For women, clothing and shoes are frequently their "hobby". For many men, clothing is mainly seen as a chore anyway; from what I've seen, it seems that it's mainly only gay men who actually care a lot about "male fashion" and put a lot of effort and money into fancy clothes.
    - facepalm 11y ago
      Also, when we bought a car a few years ago there were some standard colors that cost nothing, and several "premium colors" that cost a lot more. So the concept of letting customers pay for special colors is not new (I already mentioned the black Apple MacBook in another thread). I still think it is simply a status symbol that you pay for.
      - Grishnakh 11y ago
        Actually, there's frequently a reason for that besides marketing. Some paint finishes simply cost more than others. One thing you'll typically see on Euro cars is that the "pearl" finishes cost more than the standard black and white ones; that's because the pearls are a metallic paint that costs a lot more. Another one on my new Mazda is the "Soul Red" color they're selling, which costs $300 more. There's a good reason for this: unlike the regular pearls, this is a special 3-layer paint (basecoat, tinted clear, top clear), which costs more in materials and requires a special set-up to apply. That's just factory paint; if you want to see really crazy and expensive stuff, just visit a high-end body shop and ask them about color-shifting paints (so-called "chameleon colors") which completely change color depending on what angle you view it at.

stephenitis 11y ago

The study: http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Study-of-Gender-Pricing-in-NYC.pdf http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/partners/Study-... http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dca/partners/gender-pricing-study.page http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dca/partners/gender-pricing-study.p... the nyc.gov summary has a useful summary here Over the course of a woman’s life, the financial impact of these gender-based pricing disparities is significant. In 1994, the State of California studied the issue of gender-based pricing of services and estimated that women effectively paid an annual “gender tax” of approximately $1,351 for the same services as men.12 While DCA’s study does not estimate an annual financial impact of gender pricing for goods, the findings of this study suggest women are paying thousands of dollars more over the course of their lives to purchase similar products as men.

facepalm 11y ago
One more reason to encourage women to learn maths. If they don't care enough to compare prices, they just have to pay more. Incidentally, this could also explain why there is a women's aisle to begin with: women seem to be willing to pay more, so it makes sense to differentiate your products to allow women to pay more.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  There's another factor here: interest. The women's department in clothing stores is almost always MUCH larger than the men's department. Women typically have a lot more clothes, and a shitload more shoes than men. They just spend a lot more on clothing than men do, on average. Let's compare that with another market: aftermarket automobile parts and accessories. How many women spend hundreds of dollars on a spoiler or carbon-fiber hood for their car, or thousands of dollars on new rims? Almost none? At best, you might find a small number of women getting fancy rims (usually just tomboyish women who are into trucks), but good luck finding any who buy exhaust headers, intakes, engine tunes, etc. Similarly, you also won't find many women purchasing automotive tools like socket wrench sets, air compressors and impact wrenches, etc.; there's a few but they're ones like my sister, who do it because they're extremely practical and want to save money (and usually stick to easy stuff like oil changes anyway), not because they enjoy spending time working on their vehicles. There's other markets like this, which largely cater to men and in which men spend lots of their disposable income. For men, these things are usually called "hobbies". For women, clothing and shoes are frequently their "hobby". For many men, clothing is mainly seen as a chore anyway; from what I've seen, it seems that it's mainly only gay men who actually care a lot about "male fashion" and put a lot of effort and money into fancy clothes.
  - facepalm 11y ago
    Also, when we bought a car a few years ago there were some standard colors that cost nothing, and several "premium colors" that cost a lot more. So the concept of letting customers pay for special colors is not new (I already mentioned the black Apple MacBook in another thread). I still think it is simply a status symbol that you pay for.
    - Grishnakh 11y ago
      Actually, there's frequently a reason for that besides marketing. Some paint finishes simply cost more than others. One thing you'll typically see on Euro cars is that the "pearl" finishes cost more than the standard black and white ones; that's because the pearls are a metallic paint that costs a lot more. Another one on my new Mazda is the "Soul Red" color they're selling, which costs $300 more. There's a good reason for this: unlike the regular pearls, this is a special 3-layer paint (basecoat, tinted clear, top clear), which costs more in materials and requires a special set-up to apply. That's just factory paint; if you want to see really crazy and expensive stuff, just visit a high-end body shop and ask them about color-shifting paints (so-called "chameleon colors") which completely change color depending on what angle you view it at.