Gender Divide Evident In Online Retail

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 09:22 by Sarah Collinson

The internet may be accessible to all, but there is still a gender divide when it comes to how men and women approach online retail. To be specific, there is a difference as to how much and how often men and women spend online, with women doing more safe shopping online than men, being responsible for six out of ten online transactions. But when men do hit the net for their shopping, they are more likely than women to go all out, spending on average at least £100 per transaction compared to the £70 or so of their female counterparts.

This is according to a new study, entitled the E-Retail Report 2009 and published by Deutsche Card Services, which based its findings not on surveys but on the eight million or so transactions which occur on the Deutsche Card Services platform, whether by credit card or by newer payment methods such as Maestro. The report is in its third year of publication and attempts to analyse purchasing and payment behaviour in the online retail sector.

Deutsche Card Services points out that whilst women have the edge in terms of transactional volumes in safe shopping online, male-led expenditure in the eCommerce sector as a whole is greater, including as it does high value transactions such as online travel sales.

The study, which also sheds some light on online retail practices throughout Germany and the rest of Europe, also uncovered other interesting aspects of online retail in 2010. It seems that German online retailers are becoming bigger abroad, with there being a higher percentage of non-German shoppers on German brands' websites from 2008 to 2009 than in previous years, a rise of 3%. Conversely, German shoppers are less likely to shop at the sites of non-domestic brands, preferring to stick to German online stores with a degree of loyalty that is less evident elsewhere.