Retailers shouldn’t make International Women’s Day a commercial event

34.6% of UK women think retailers should be in a giving mood on International Women’s Day, according to research by GlobalData involving 1,000 people.

When asked what retailers should do for the occasion, which takes place on Sunday, the responses included in-store events (24.3%), offering discounts (31.4%) and highlighting the role of women in the brand (32.1%), but the most popular was giving a portion of sales to charity.

Retailers’ marketing initiatives surrounding International Women’s Day have increased. Last year, Mango offered 25% off its entire collection and, this year, & Other Stories has collaborated with nine female international photographers to take self-portraits, which will be sold online and in-store.

Emily Stella, Retail Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “According to our research, consumers are not taking notice of retailer activity – and that is not because they’d rather retailers didn’t do anything at all (a sizeable 71.9% of females believe they should). Namely, they would like to see retailers give a portion of their sales to charity or highlight the roles of women in their brand.”

“For the 28.1% of females who would rather retailers did nothing, the leading reason was that they’d prefer not to see the day become a commercial event.”