CNN: Women bought technology for $55 billion last year. Men for $44 billion. In the US, I assume.

Nearly three-quarters of women surveyed by the industry group complained about being ignored, patronized or offended by sales people when shopping for electronics. Forty percent of the women said they were treated better when accompanied by a man.

3 thoughts on “who buys technology

  1. Sheila Webber

    I can’t resist adding my experience when buying a laptop at a major UK chain (PC World) 6 months ago. In fact I was accompanied by my husband, but he kept quiet throughout the interaction with the sales people, and the only good thing they did was NOT address their remarks to him.

    1) We looked at the laptops. One looked pretty good value for what it was (I’d been comparing prices on the net) and I was keen to get it there and then.

    2) I told the assistant “I’d like that one” He went and fetched it.

    3) We sat down and he took some details. He then started into a spiel telling me about insurance options in case the laptop went wrong and I cut him off before he could finish it, saying I wasn’t interested. He’d shown me onscreen what the prices were – several hundred pounds for three years – and they seemed to me excessive. The first year is covered anyway, and after that you start to think – if I’m paying 300 or 400 pounds, I could put that to a new computer. And the chances are that it WON’T go wrong in the first 3 years. The assistant gabbled through the rest of his spiel anyway and then left us for a moment.

    3) He came back with his manager. The manager said that I shouldn’t dismiss the insurance options so lightly and started to go through them again, talking to me as if I knew nothing about computers, and must be refusing the insurance because I was ignorant. Again I said firmly that I wasn’t interested, I just wanted to pay for the laptop. At this point the manager made the classic remark that “If it goes wrong, it isn’t like fixing a dishwasher, you know”. Ironically, I don’t actually have a dishwasher, but I HAVE been using computers for (gulp) over 20 years now. At no point did anyone ask about my own level of expertise. At this point I was ready to say “Stuff your computer” but they did actually give up then, and I did want to get the computer that day, so I just paid and went. I assume they make their money out of frightening people into taking out overpriced insurance.

    I enjoy your blog, by the way

    Sheila

  2. David

    DOes this mean they bought more, or perhaps just paid more?

  3. Jill

    Oh good grief, I sure hope they actually got more as well… no, I would think it means they bought more. Or better.

Leave a Reply to David Cancel reply

Recommended Posts

Triple book talk: Watch James Dobson, Jussi Parikka and me discuss our 2023 books

Thanks to everyone who came to the triple book talk of three recent books on machine vision by James Dobson, Jussi Parikka and me, and thanks for excellent questions. Several people have emailed to asked if we recorded it, and yes we did! Here you go! James and Jussi’s books […]

Image on a black background of a human hand holding a graphic showing the word AI with a blue circuit board pattern inside surrounded by blurred blue and yellow dots and a concentric circular blue design.
AI and algorithmic culture Machine Vision

Four visual registers for imaginaries of machine vision

I’m thrilled to announce another publication from our European Research Council (ERC)-funded research project on Machine Vision: Gabriele de Setaand Anya Shchetvina‘s paper analysing how Chinese AI companies visually present machine vision technologies. They find that the Chinese machine vision imaginary is global, blue and competitive.  De Seta, Gabriele, and Anya Shchetvina. “Imagining Machine […]

Do people flock to talks about ChatGPT because they are scared?

Whenever I give talks about ChatGPT and LLMs, whether to ninth graders, businesses or journalists, I meet people who are hungry for information, who really want to understand this new technology. I’ve interpreted this as interest and a need to understand – but yesterday, Eirik Solheim said that every time […]