This document summarizes a study on the influence of a sales person's gender in the apparel sales process. It conducted a survey of 102 respondents to understand how gender impacts purchase intention. The study found that male salespeople tended to induce stronger purchase intentions than females. It was found that salesperson credibility, specifically perceptions of trustworthiness and attractiveness, played a significant mediating role between salesperson gender and purchase intention. For gender-sensitive apparel products, evolutionary theories suggest males may be more effective at generating purchase intention due to appearing more trustworthy and attractive to female customers.

1. Influence of Sales Person’s Gender in Sales
Process in Apparel Section
Presented by
Manikandan V Nair
15DM024
PGDM – 2015-17

2. INTRODUCTION
Shop owners and marketers often seem to believe that matching a salesperson’s gender with
that of the customer has more influence in marketing outcomes.
These arguments are grounded in homophily theory (Lazarsfeld and Merton, 1964), which
assumes that communication is more effective when both the source and receiver are alike
because they are more likely to have mutual understanding and common beliefs.
Homophily
i.e., "love of the same", is the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar
others. The presence of homophily has been discovered in a vast array of network studies.
Heterophily
i.e.,”love of the different”, is the tendency of individuals to collect in diverse groups

3. OBJECTIVES
• To get a better understanding of the influence of sales persons gender
in sales process.
• To understand the gender influence in purchase intention.

4. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Sze Sze Li, 2014) did a study to assess the utility of the homophily
theory and the related concept of source similarity which predict that
a male salesperson is more effective in serving male customers, and a
female is more effective with females. For products designed to
enhance female attractiveness, however, Darwinian theories of
reproduction suggested that a male may be more effective than a
female in dealing with female customers.

5. METHODOLOGY
• An exploratory study was conducted to know about the Influence of
sales person’s gender in sales process in apparel section.
• A questionnaire was formed with relevant questions to get a strong
conclusion.
• The questionnaire followed was close ended, dichotomous and likert
scaled standard questionnaire.
• Sample size of 102.

6. DATA ANALYSIS
• The respondents were equally divided into males and females, and 80% cent of
the respondents were aged between 18 and 25 years, while the remainder were
30-35 years.
• The reliability of the salesperson credibility and purchase intention variables was
examined by looking at the factorial structure of each scale separately.
• Each of the scales was individually subjected to a principal components analysis.

7. Data Interpretation:
64% of the respondent were in the age group of
20-25
28% of the respondent were in the age group of
18-20
6% of the respondent were in the age group of
25-30
3% of the respondent were in the age group of
30-35
AGE

8. Data Interpretation:
57% of the respondents were female
43% of the respondent were male
GENDER

9. Data Interpretation:
• 2% of the respondent’s preferred Boutique
• 7% of the respondent’s preferred
Department Stores
• 22% of the respondent’s preferred Retail
outlet
• 70% of the respondent’s preferred shopping
mall
STORE TYPE

10. CONCLUSION
• The experiment found that a male salesperson tended to induce
significantly stronger purchase intention than a female, and that
salesperson credibility (specifically, trustworthiness and
attractiveness) plays a significant role in mediating the impact of
salesperson gender on purchase intention.
• Some products can be considered as gender-sensitive, and when that
is the case, evolutionary theorizing is of importance in understanding
buyer behavior. The findings indicated that male salesmen can
generate greater purchase intention for apparel because they have
more perceived trustworthiness and attractiveness.

11. THANK YOU