The Role of gender matching in personal selling of embarrassing products: an empirical study in Zimbabwean fashion boutiques

Abstract

Effective personal selling of embarrassing products, such as undergarments, seems to be a complex phenomenon in conservative societies, where sexuality is treated with higher levels of sacredness. This phenomenon is worsened by the gender mismatch between sales assistants and customers. Therefore, there is a need to determine whether gender matching between sales assistants and customers can improve customer-initiated sales interactions and sales conversion. To achieve this objective, an observation of personal selling encounters was conducted in fashion boutiques in Zimbabwe. A sample of 400 encounters was recorded, and a chi-square statistic was used to analyse the data. The results indicated that gender matching has a statistically significant effect on customer-initiated sales interactions and sales conversions. The findings of this study expanded the applicability of the role congruency theory to sales encounters for embarrassing products. The practical implications of this study suggested that gender matching should be considered when deploying sales assistants for embarrassing products so as to elicit customer-initiated sales interactions and sales conversions. Customer-initiated sales interactions play an important role in generating sales conversions. Gender matching tends to provide some comfort to the customers of embarrassing products, leading to pleasant shopping experiences.