Who buys more online: men or women?

January 15, 2015 at 11:13 AM
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Women do more business online than men, new research shows.

This surprising finding is unveiled in a report from ContentSquare, a developer of web and mobile optimization solutions. Based on survey of 4,000 French citizens, the study explores behavioral differences — between men and women, left-handers and right-handers, young and old — on ecommerce web sites.

Among the report's findings:

Men versus women:

  • Women interact more and faster with e-commerce sites than men.

  • Women click 30 percent more on websites than men.

  • Women's activity rate is 11 percent higher than that of men.

  • Women view 12 percent more pages than men.

  • They hesitate 10 percent less than men before clicking on an element of the page.

  • They purchase 7 percent faster than men.

The report adds that women tend to be picture-oriented, whereas men are detail-oriented. Women also are more likely to display pictures than men, who are more interested in viewing and reading product descriptions.

Left-handers versus right-handers

  • Right-handers click 8 percent more than left handers.

  • Left-handers take 20 percent more time to click than right handers.

  • When making purchases, left-handers are 30 percent slower than right-handers.

  • Compared to right-handers, left-handers mostly use the left part of the menu.

  • A left-hander is 29 percent less likely to hover over a menu's right tabs.

Young versus older people

  • Click-rates and display time among Millennials (ages 18 to 34) and older individuals (GenXers and boomers, ages 45 to 64) are comparable. Among the differences between the two groups:

  • GenXers/boomers view 4 percent fewer pages than do millenials.

  • Hesitation time (time spent before clicking) is 30 percent higher among GenXers and boomers.

  • GenXers and boomers have click rates equivalent to millennials and are equally active.

"We remain convinced that behavioral patterns are different from one web user to another, depending on structural variables — culture, gender, period of time, and so on," says Jonathan Content Square CEO Jonathan Cherki. "The study allowed us to validate that theory, as it implies that customizing the customer's journey is more than ever relevant and efficient."

View infographics of survey highlights starting on the following page.

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