International Women’s Day is fast approaching, and 81.6% of UK women interviewed by data and analytics company GlobalData are aware of this long-established event. When women were asked what retailers should do for the occasion, 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 at 34.6%.

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.

IMAGE Available: Female customers’ views on what retailers should do on International Women’s Day, UK

Emily Stella, Retail Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “According to the research by GlobalData, 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, female consumers 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.”