WOMEN DON'T JUST BUY SHOES

“We are perhaps on the first step to a matriarchal society; women will earn more money than men if current trends continue by 2028,” . . .Women, Mr. Silverstein added, are “controlling purchases and driving a shift in our economy.”

travel
“Women are making 70 percent of travel decisions, for the family, for their own getaways or for people at work,” said Niki Leondakis, the chief operating officer of Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants in San Francisco.

electronics
“Women are outspending men in our industry $55 billion to $41 billion,” Ms. Gilbert said. “Not only that, they are actually influencing 90 percent of the purchases. It is a new day in consumer electronics.”

big-ticket household purchases
Women accounted for 33 percent of the purchases at big-box retailers in 2005, up from 28 percent in 2003, according to the NPD Group, a consumer research firm. “That’s a huge shift,” said Mark J. Delaney, an NPD analyst, “not to be taken lightly.”

homes
single women are the fastest-growing segment of home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors, purchasing 21 percent of homes, compared with just 9 percent for single men.

cars
women buy more than 50 percent of the new cars and trucks sold in the United States. In 2005, based on data from National Automobile Dealers Association, that amounted to about $200 billion spent on about eight million new vehicles.

--all quotes from the New York Times, October 29, 2006