The words ‘shopping’ and 'men' is often a rare combination but a new study into behaviour analysis shows that while men do less research than women they are still likely to buy online.
Lasoo analysed the online habits of 11,320 people at leading Australian online retailers and found men consider 34.8 per cent fewer purchase alternatives compared to women.
The analysis, which included reviewing 456,000 online shopping interactions with leading Australian retailers, found men reviewed significantly less information about potential choices.
Overall men considered just eight alternatives when looking for a product online, however on items such as clothing or homewares it dropped to less than five options. Interestingly despite less rigorous research men were only 7 per cent less likely to make a purchase than women following online browsing.
Dominic Finnegan, executive general manager, Lasoo said, the analysis gave an interesting insight into how gender may influence online shopping behaviours.
“Men seem to know what they want, when they see it, while women definitely take a more considered approach. There are a lot of behaviours that are fairly consistent across genders but browsing doesn’t seem to be one of them,” he said.
”There could be a range of factors that drive this behaviour, or it could just be that they’re more focussed shoppers. We hope further analysis might be able to help Lasoo uncover more of these insights.”
Items that gained more attention from male shoppers were entertainment products such as video games or movies, which ranked amongst the least considered by women. The biggest disparity was in groceries and household items – with men considering just three item alternatives while women considering more than 15.
Finnegan said a deeper understanding of gender shopping experiences is critical for online retailers.
“This kind of insight helps Lasoo deliver services that are better suited to more specific target groups,” he said.
“For example, we recently launched our Celebration of Man campaign in the lead up to Father’s Day and included a lot of reference material for more information-hungry female shoppers – who tend to account for most Father’s Day purchases
“Overall we want to make sure that we are making the search and buying process is as easy and stress-free for our shoppers as possible.”