NEW YORK, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Home Depot is targeting its female customers by sprucing up departments offering home redecorating supplies and projects, the company says.
The company, acknowledging it has not always catered to women although they make up half its customers, hopes to attract them during what is the major selling season for home improvement stores, The New York Times reported Friday.
"People are starting to spend more money again, and we need to participate in that," says Gordon Erickson, senior vice president for merchandising and decor.
"For years, we've always had a bad -- I don't want to say a bad reputation, it's more that people look at our business and think it is male-oriented, dominated," Erickson says.
"Fifty percent of our customers are female. We need to offer her products that she wants."
Getting women to shop at a warehouse store can be challenging, says one analyst who studies men's and women's shopping habits.
Home improvement stores "have been viewed as 'very large hardware stores' where big, burly men go to purchase their tools and supplies," says Nelson Barber, an economics professor at the University of New Hampshire.
"These big-box stores need to appear less hardware- and more improvement-driven in the image, and reflect more women in their messages," he says.
