It is probably one of the oldest stereotypes that, women ‘Love to shop’. Well! Not all women do, but a majority does. Men on the other hand may not enjoy the activity as much as women do, there is a handful who love to scroll the net and scamper through a few racks. If not clothes and shoes they are gadget crazy shoppers. This is not just a mere stereotype, there are researches which back up these theories, using these theories Ecommerce markets grab the big piggy bank.
Women are indeed the Rocket fuel of Ecommerce. Forbes quoted
an insightful study by Aileen Lee, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and
buyers, which states why women dominate ecommerce. Women are majority users of
social network around 55 % of social networkers are females. Her point is not
just to be proud that women purchase more shoes or books or surf for more
restaurants online than men, but rather to point to the business reality that
women are the dominant purchasing population. Women are 70% of the customer
base and they drive 74% of revenue.
Having said this Large Ecommerce companies in India such as
Myntra, Flipkart, Amazon, Ebay are making use of this information in a very
smart way. They know that woman are amplifiers and routers of the social web,
placing women as their targets strategies are built to sell and market branded goods.
Ecommerce uses big data analytics as their secret weapon to target
their audience. Keeping in mind that there has been exponential growth in
digitalization and prevalent social media experience, ecommerce uses big data
tools to collect, manage, dispense and control structured and unstructured
product information across B2B commerce channels. Accurate online content
informs customers, builds trust, and helps to improve the opinion of the
brands; this also gives their customers better shopping experiences.
There are a wide range of ecommerce softwares like shopify,
3Dcart, volusion, big commerce, pinnacle cart, Go daddy. These are fully
integrated ecommerce software solution packages that gives the website owner
control of all aspect of the website, not just a product catalogue. Imagine
a website that would allow your customers to place an order for your goods and
when they sent their order to you, your stock or inventory database will be
updated immediately, outwards goods are notified and the customer is sent an
advice from packing staff when the goods are shipped. With these smooth
functioning reasons and plenty of crazy women shopaholics who get lured into
the sirens of the sea of ecommerce, retailers have their money bags full.
What do shoppers
look for?
Traditionally women take hours to shop; most of them love to
look at ten options to buy one that suits them best. Several women window shop,
for best buys wait for the End of season sale to buy the same at discounted
prices. Ecommerce allows a shopper to spend hours surfing the net for hundreds
of options, compare and buy and many other options. Ecommerce is basically a
process of searching for and selecting products from online catalogues and then
checking out with various payment options.
A shopper finds this delightful as sites offer attractive
discounts, lower prices and varied options in comparison to mortar stores. The
product gets delivered, with tracking details, pay on delivery option, neat
packages and the last but the best option 30 day return policy. You don’t like
it tell the retailer why and it is exchanged with money back offers as
well.
An ecommerce retailer benefits at the same time. As the
analytics saves time by reducing paper work, errors in keying in data, shorter lead
times for payment and return on investment in advertising, faster delivery of
product. They also have the ability to handle complex situations, product ranges
and customer profiles without the situation becoming unmanageable.
Conclusion
In e-commerce, female purchasing power is also pretty
clear. Sites like Zappos (>$1 billion in
revenue last year), Groupon ($760m last
year), Gilt Groupe ($500m projected
revenue this year), Etsy (over $300m in
GMV last year), and Diapers ($300m estimated
revenue last year) are all driven by a majority of female customers.
Aileen Lee says, “Women in tech have been missing a key
insight. If you figure out how to harness the power of female customers, you
can rock the ecommerce world of business.”
Come to think of it none of us can put down those attractive
extra 50 percent offs from Myntra or Flipkart, that too when they keep flashing
up on your screen and you suddenly recall that it was your last glance on that
particular ecommerce site, and we do end up shopping.
