Do men or women pay more? Gender pricing exposed (CBC Marketplace)

we're hitting the road to find out it holds fair between men and women when we go shopping and shell out in this day and age prices of popular items for men and women must be the same right we've heard rumblings it may not be an even playing field so we're testing some of the biggest retailers in the country Walmart Target and Hudson's Bay when it comes to similar items who's paying more women or men we're about to find out in this battle of the sexes all right partner you ready to do some shopping you bet I'd watch out if I were you cuz I'm a pretty wide shopper and I think I'm gonna get better deals on products for women you know what I think it's gonna be cheaper to shop like a guy today hmm I would not be so confident you are not gonna win this battle oh really I'll see you inside waiting legs our first stop Walmart shopping for some everyday things starting in the toiletry section we can't use our camera so I'll come the smartphones okay I've been in the men's aisle looking at razors razors these are the custom plus three Gillette all right and these are six dollars and 22 cents all right so I'm going to look for something comparable here's ladies Gillette how much you're yours six dollars and 22 cents these are 998 you know what I call that razor burn ouch women are paying 60% more for these Gillette razors let's try the shampoo shelf okay so Tom I've got the Loreal volume collagen two-in-one shampoo and conditioner i have the l'oreal men expert two and one and it is three dollars and ninety two cents for ninety six this over a buck difference i think i'm a hand of use tshane yep it costs women an extra twenty six percent to buy this shampoo third time's a charm right okay well I found speed stick invisible for forty five grams it's two bucks what price have you got - two bucks as well but I get seventy grams so same price but you get seventy I get 45 I know women are the fairer sex Erika but this isn't a fair fight sorry that's three items and then either pay less or pay the same and get more we asked Walmart to explain the gender pricing we've seen they won't come on camera but the company does give us a statement you know we get that a lot at marketplace but rather than bore you with a bunch of words on the screen we're bringing in an actor playing the role of a lifetime as a Walmart big wheel obviously we would never intentionally price the same product higher for women than men price differences between similar products can be driven by a number of manufacturing factors that Scripps doesn't quite add up for Katy dunnsworth react she teaches people how to save money is a best-selling financial author and is so popular she's even been on Oprah what do you think about products that are priced differently for men and for women I am appalled that this still goes on what appalls you about it what really appalls me is that most of these products are essentially the same and just because someone hasn't has a certain gender they're expected to pay a different price of course not every product we pick up is priced higher for women but why is there any difference why do you think it's important for products to be priced the same I mean for nothing else the message that it sends is so sexist women should not be paying more for something that is essentially the same so far this battle of the sexes seems pretty one-sided maybe I'll have better luck at another big retail store Hudson's Bay we hit the fragrance department for some popular brands it costs women more to buy this perfume this time 17% more let's check out another fragrance when you factor in the difference in size women are paying 47% more for this perfume so we asked Hudson's Bay to explain the price gaps we're seeing guess what no interview so guess what we do mm-hmm another actor retail pricing for fragrances is determined by a number of factors including ingredients concentrate competition pricing market and cost of goods but does that explain the price gaps there could be differences in the ingredients or the manufacturing of any of the products we looked at companies have said that the products aren't the same and that's why women sometimes have to pay more and I hated that I think that's complete garbage to be honest I think you know the differences are so minimal we're talking about a different fragrance or maybe a little bit more of one ingredient just a line would you say this is price discrimination against women yeah I mean I would say that women are pretty much being penalised by buying something that's pink or fluorescent floral smelling and it's it's just crazy if that's the case why do we fall for it to get the inside scoop on how marketing affects what we are willing to pay for products we had to scratch a Toronto marketing firm you've got the female razor and the male razor your price difference hey guys thanks for helping us out today we are hoping you will take a product and then brand one specifically for men and one specifically for women do you think you could do that okay great the product we want you to brand for us is a toothpaste all right we're here to talk about taste and women let's just throw it words that would that associate with women's products and also wonderfully so with men's product let's start with one colors traditionally sorry I want to state that now pink pastel pastel purple softer tones pink pastels we really fall for that what about the guys luck silver gray they say packaging makes a big difference to like the big success Ford of it rebranded some products to appeal to men it's kind of screams one is is definitely squared off it almost looks like they literally whittled that off to make it the male version so colors packaging next step brainstorming names for our toothpaste so anything coming in how about we have pearls yeah Robert later will tell you what they come up with for gals and for guys we've got some clues into what drives the differences between men's and women's products will we see more at Target we pick up the next item in our battle of the sexes bedsheets for kids the girls version okay I've got some bedsheets by Serco it's a twin set 225 thread count so 225 thread count sports and these are $19.99 these are $24.99 five bucks more 25% more expensive just cuz they're pink what happens when we check out another kids product I found really cute little toy by fisher-price two little man on a horse eat crossing a bridge and it's $7.49 okay little people clip-clop I've got Cinderella $9.99 $9.99 so 250 more how is that for Cinderella not price charming you know what good one but they're also starting the price difference young sure are that's sad sad for the wallet to the girls version of these fisher-price toys will cost you 33% turns out gender pricing doesn't discriminate by age watch what happens when we compare products that claim to make us look younger I have found a product called L'Oreal men expert vitae lift okay L'Oreal he said Revitalift okay I have got this cream 2299 mine is $8.99 what $14 difference it says 48 mils on this box mine's 52 mils more but hardly enough to justify charging women a whopping 145 percent more than men for a similar product expect more pay less unless you're a woman we asked target why we're seeing these incredible gender differences in price once again no interview so for their statement we call in another actor who's not suffering from corporate stage fright there are many factors that influence prices but we want to clearly state that the prices of our products have absolutely nothing to do with what gender the products are geared towards when we come back we head to a place where you can't take liberties with gender pricing that's protecting consumer rights and our investigation gets action here at home it's a battle of the sexes shopping style Tom and I are putting products for him and her head to head who gets a better price for the items we've looked at women aren't winning part of the problem snazzy marketing we've learned it doesn't just lure us in things like sparkle and shine on women's products trick us into paying more so how'd the marketing team use those tactics and we asked them to create a toothpaste for guys and gals so hey what did you got well here we go the male and the female wow look at the difference okay when we were focusing on the guys we definitely went with the bolder colors a stronger verbage again more with extremes max strength maximum level and we went through with the concept of bear paste there's a macho name for the men then we move over to the girls side of things different verbage flirty pearls is the concept we went with we went with a luxury white again it's much cleaner we went with more with the pastels same product but two very different brands for him of her let's see if men and women are game to guess which one they pay more for at this battle of the sexes on the volleyball court we show some players our marketers handiwork this is a fair pace it's men's to face and this is flirty pearls a woman's toothpaste which one do you think is more expensive off the top my head I would say foodie pros for sure it just seems like a cosmetic kind of thing and we would definitely pay more for that okay reality is we had these made up by a marketing team they don't exist but we're trying to show what how marketing affects the choices that we make what do you think of the idea of women paying more for products than men that are essentially the same product doesn't make any sense to me I don't think we should be paying more to think it should be the same thing but then again if we are buying it they're gonna keep doing gender pricing on products is just one front in this battle of the sexes women have been paying more for things such as haircuts and dry-cleaning for years but not in New York City more than a decade ago City Council been gender pricing for the same service we catch up with Julie menin Commissioner for the city's Department of Consumer Affairs what was the reason behind passing a law like this people were being charged different prices based on their gender and we were really seeing a lot of evidence of this and so we had launched an investigation how do you check in with companies that are doing it and then even enforce the law against them so our inspectors go in to various businesses to specifically look for a gender-based pricing we want to see for ourselves so we tagged along with an undercover New York City inspector who can't be identified go to various shops to see if they're obeying the law this dry cleaner is there a quick different on between lady immense same the same same prices this shop gets a clean record on its pricing with first-time fines up to 250 bucks the law seems to be working how about at this barber shop the price list does not indicate any gender differences on it Consumer Affairs Commissioner Julie menin says this is a battle of the sexes that all citizens in New York City are winning from what you've seen so far what effect has the law had on services and even prices people have been very happy about this law because they really feel it's protecting consumer rights and making sure that items are being priced fairly why do you think more jurisdictions aren't doing something like this well we hope they will they we hope that they will follow New York City's lead we think the law has been very important we think the effect has been to protect consumers rights and so we certainly hope that other cities and other jurisdictions will follow suit no such thing in Canada so we want to ask Ontario's minister of government and Consumer Services why there's no gender pricing law here we call in another actor to deliver his response not available for an interview as you know the big three retailers won't talk either so what about their association the retail Council of Canada they're not available either but get this after telling the retailers what we found a couple of them take action target fixes the prices on those toys and bed sheets for girls they're now the same price as the boys and about face for Walmart to sorta in an internal email we get our hands on they say the price difference for the L'Oreal shampoo was a mistake and they will investigate financial expert Katie dunnsworth react says if things are gonna change the buck stops with you when people come across these price differences what can they do about it but take it to the store manager if the store manager doesn't give you the attention take it up the chain I've even emailed the CEO and I'm really upset about something it's very important to speak out because if you don't start to create that change there's never going to be the demand for it to be any different but this battle of the sexes isn't quite over okay I might be cheating but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in price on this Tom because I don't think they make this for men

Channel: CBC News

Views: 256,230

Rating: 3.3108385 out of 5

Keywords: Gender (Quotation Subject), Man (Art Subject), Woman (Broadcast Genre), sexism, pricing, shopping, Retail (Industry)

Id: vKvHB5RLf3Q

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 21 2014