Fred Harteis says women are Driving Online Shopping Growth ...
She works hard for her money and she’s spending it online. Last year women accounted for 52% of online buyers and it's growing.
Category growth also points to the increasing influence of women online. The retail segments where women regularly spend the most money are the same ones experiencing the largest online growth. It will continue. Jupiter predicts that home improvement, grocery, over-the-counter drugs and personal care categories will see steep online sales growth (30% or more a year). Mature categories like books and electronics are expected to grow at 10% a year.
Although research groups like to disagree, Forrester Research agrees with Jupiter that strong growth will continue in women-driven categories with the largest growth in relatively new categories such as grocery, home décor, sporting goods, and health and beauty.
A simple example of online retailers "catching on" can be told in the story of living color. A few years ago, less than 10% of sites selling apparel offered their shoppers color swatch choices. Site designers seemed to think that the word "blue" was enough information for a purchase. Wrong. Today 90% of apparel sites use them. In home décor, research shows that 43% of sites have color swatches to offer their visitors.
Teen Shopper: Girls go online at a younger age and are slightly more influential in household spending than boys. Girls are more active shopping online at age 14 than boys are at age 17. The teen shopper spending her own money is most likely to purchase music and apparel.
Opportunity Lost: If we could look down on the web today, we’d find it littered by billions of abandoned shopping carts containing multiple items. The carts are abandoned by frustrated would-be shoppers who didn’t spend money with you today.
TIP: If your site isn’t constantly focused on better ways to make it simple and interesting for women to shop with you, your priorities are wrong. Ask constantly, observe, listen carefully–all with the goal of identifying each spot where your site isn’t measuring up to your customers' shopping expectations. Fix it fast and you might be part of a 2005 retail success story.
Sources: Jupiter Research, Forrester Research, Kamaron Institute Ross
