The Quiet Male e-Shopper

There's tons of stuff all over the net about female buying statistics and behaviour, whether off or online, by level of income and education, by age groups, and even by segments within age groups.

But not even Google can muster one page, or even half of one, of usable links about the male shopper.

What you do find bolsters certain long-held stereotypes. More men than women buy electronics and computer hardware online, according to Nielsen, and participate in e-auctions. When they're shopping, men are wont to go in and out the door as fast in situ as online.

Citing differences in brain stimulus responses, chron.com said men are more tactical and time-conscious and would prefer speed, functionality, and simplicity when they are navigating e-commerce sites.

A Bloomberg Business week report said men have been a marketing afterthought for a century. An estimate put the US male's share in consumer spending at $2.4 trillion, or a fourth of total spending last year.

This didn't stop menswear retailers from noticing the unheralded upward movement in men's apparel sales, at a consistent 4-5.5 per cent rate of growth in recent years. In 2008, sales in women's clothing grew only 1.1 per cent, but men's apparel sales grew by 4.4 per cent despite widespread anxiety about the recession.

A Wall Street Journal article by Ray Smith reported that men online shoppers decide quickly, spend more money-and return less stuff. In a poll of luxury shoppers, men said they'd spent an average $2,401 on fashion and clothing, almost 60 per cent more than the $1,527 of women respondents.

Hungry for any signs of growth, retailers started e-marketing to male shoppers. Saks Fifth added 40 men's designer brands to saks.com where sales growth has reportedly been markedly higher compared to growth in the women's section. Not to be outdone, bergdorfgoodman.com soon refurbished and expanded up its own men's store.

The other obvious growth area has been in men's personal care. In the UK, sales for men's skincare products grew to £592million in 2009, up 3.9 per cent from the previous year's. But a study involving 25,000 households across the country reportedly found that it's women who were buying at least half of total male personal care products sold.

It appears that blokes were helping themselves to their partners' moisturizers, eye creams, and what not, instead of buying their own.

But with all the for-men-only products out there on the Web today, it's just remarkable how quiet everyone is about the which, and the how much, and the how often there are of things in the realm of male online shopping behaviour.