Gender and Online Shopping.

There is a growing body of scientific research that suggests that the longer your ring finger is in proportion to your index finger, the more likely you are to shop online.

What?! I hear you cry. Well, perhaps that is not the whole truth, but according to those in the know, the longer your ring finger is in proportion to your index finger the more likely your brain gender skews male. Therefore, goes the theory, the more symmetrical your second and fourth finger digits are, the higher the likelihood that you will exhibit traits commonly classed as “feminine”, including shopping for goods and services that the data suggest are popular with female shoppers.

Why are you telling me this? you ask. Well, to stretch the biological idea to (and probably beyond) its limit, it is interesting that we are now doing a great deal of our shopping with our index finger.

This segues neatly (ahem) into a recent study by Euromonitor that reports on the online shopping preferences of males and females.

The international research firm analyzed online expenditures by gender, age, wealth and education in over 70 market sectors and 35 countries. Euromonitor found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the influence of women in household expenditures is growing, and overall, women dominated the deployment of the online retail dollar.

In a lovely turn of phrase, the study notes that “In Asia, newly-wealthy women are discovering the enfranchising delights of discretionary shopping, and are approaching routine shopping as fun rather than duty.” Female purchasing decisions were particularly dominant in the skin care and cosmetics sectors, while men dominate all purchases of cigars and camcorders.

While approximately 51% of all Internet users in the US are women (five million more than men), according to eMarketer, for certain shopping sites such as JCPenny and Federated Department Stores the percentage of female visitors is much higher than the general Internet population.

So next time you buy something online, gaze down at your mouse-clicking finger and reflect that it may have more influence on your Internet behavior than you think.

Courtesy of http://www.emarketer.com