For Women: Size Bias

[SeriousSurveyer]

Are you disqualified from clothing and shopping surveys that ask for your size and you click 8 or below?

I can count on one hand the number of times I haven't been disqualified from a survey that asks for my dress or pants size and I responded 0-4. The first time it happened I thought, "Okay, they must be looking for women who wear larger sizes." But it kept happening. Once I answered "8" just to see what would happen...Still disqualified.

Now size 8 pants seems pretty regular to me. I have a hard time believing these surveys are only applicable to women who wear plus sizes. Especially since they often start the question with "We are looking for women of diverse sizes." This is clearly not the case.

This has happened to me twice in the past two days. They should be upfront about only wanting responses from women who wear double digit sizes.

[avemaria]

i have no idea anymore.. i get cut just for answering the first question on the survey, which is my age....

[rosiesmom]

I would love to get a question about plus size clothing. I could answer questions about that all day. Then there is the age issue. I have lived quite a while and think that I have some good insight, but nope, I am too old!!

[avemaria]

what gets me about the age is that's a profile question.. i shouldn't even get a survey on my list that's going to cut me for that.

[rosiesmom]

I agree totally! They know who they are looking for when they start, why even bother me with it?

[footfree]

I don't know I've answered the clothes surveys and have gotten in.I mean I wear a 6/8 so I don't know if it's that or if it's where we buy the clothes from and how much we are willing to spend on them.

[SeriousSurveyer]

Maybe it's just me, or maybe just size 4 and below. Because I always, always get DQ'd. I more think the question is there to weed people out than as the classification question they dress it up to be.

And I agree: being disqualified for basic demographics like age makes no sense when supposedly we fill out profiles to better match us to surveys.

[Administrator]

And I agree: being disqualified for basic demographics like age makes no sense when supposedly we fill out profiles to better match us to surveys.

Unfortunately, profiler data is not always passed on for surveys that are hosted through different survey providers. If a market research company has contacted another company to help fill the quota for a survey, the survey may become available to you even though you get screened out right away. It's definitely inefficient and frustrating, but this is often the reason for having to repeat oneself. Repetitive questioning is also a form of quality control.

Demographic segmentation is a big part of market research. Marketers know who their target market is, so when they conduct a survey and you get screened out because you're a size 2, 8, or 16, it's because the client is only seeking opinions from a certain group of people. It's not discriminatory, it's just research. It's the same as being disqualified due to age, location, gender, etc. Clients are chasing after opinions from a certain group of people. If it happens time and time again for you, you can chalk it up to bad luck more than anything else, as the client ultimately decide who they want to hear from. Answering falsely to these questions degrades the quality of online market research. If the data collected from conducting an online survey is useless and riddled with false information, you can be assured the client won't use online survey methodology in the future.

[SeriousSurveyer]

Unfortunately, profiler data is not always passed on for surveys that are hosted through different survey providers.

I understand why it happens. I only agree that some of these survey panels could do a better job of filtering the surveys they get. Last night I got a special survey invite for my female child who is under the age of 12. Great, except I don't have a female child under 12. Or a child, at all.

Demographic segmentation is a big part of market research. Marketers know who their target market is, so when they conduct a survey and you get screened out because you're a size 2, 8, or 16, it's because the client is only seeking opinions from a certain group of people. It's not discriminatory, it's just research. It's the same as being disqualified due to age, location, gender, etc.

It would be assuming that all of these surveys are only applicable to women of a certain sizes. If they are then why say We're looking for women of all sizes...? Sounds misleading to me.

That's why I've concluded that this question is a weedout question in majority of surveys. After all, every survey about clothes and shopping doesn't have this question. So when they include it, it's probably because they're looking only for women of certain sizes. In which case they could just state that.

Thanks for your response.

[Administrator]

I understand why it happens. I only agree that some of these survey panels could do a better job of filtering the surveys they get. Last night I got a special survey invite for my female child who is under the age of 12. Great, except I don't have a female child under 12. Or a child, at all.

Agreed, most survey panels could use a lot of work in this area.

It would be assuming that all of these surveys are only applicable to women of a certain sizes. If they are then why say We're looking for women of all sizes...? Sounds misleading to me.

In this case, they might be looking for women of all sizes, however there could be varying quota caps for each size. For instance, if they are looking for more size 0's than size 8's, it might seem that they are only targeting women of certain sizes, when in fact they are targeting all women, but in varying quantities per size. Also, If the average American women is a size 8 for example, the quota for women of this size will be filled faster, simply because it is a common size.