By Brittany Garguilo and Christopher Leelum
This new online shopping population will find new delivery accessibility for their purchases as Amazon rolls out its new service, Flex, which will pay part-time drivers to deliver packages to people in their area. Flex launched in Seattle this past Tuesday and will be coming soon to Manhattan.
“The tech shift away from desktops has a lot to do with it,” James Cohen, Director of the New Media Program at Molloy College, said. “Men are dedicated shoppers and use one-click shopping much more. Women, on the other hand, are less likely to be on desktop because they are more likely to browse and research on the go.”
Cohen studies the uses, demographics, and behavior of the Internet and has published his works in books including his most recent, “Producing New and Digital Media: Your Guide to Savvy Use of the Web.”
Of the U.S. consumers who completed an online purchase on a mobile device last month, 66.5 percent were women, according to that same study.
Two years ago, more men than women completed online purchases on their smartphones or tablets, but last month women were two-thirds of the mobile online buyers for the first time ever.
eMarketer, an independent market research company, published findings in April that showed mobile internet usage overtook desktop usage last year. That correlates with the first year women outnumbered men in mobile online purchasing.
Cohen said the accessibility of the internet on mobile devices has worked in favor of women because they take much more time before making online purchases.
“I like the layout of hundreds of items so I can compare things more easily and see them side by side,” Daldeze Jung, a student majoring in economics at Stony Brook University said about shopping online. “I also like being able to check prices across the board. It makes it easier to find specific things.”
“I think that men do less research than women,” Dr. April Benson, a psychologist who specializes in the treatment of compulsive buying disorder, said. “The way men and women buy has always had a tendency to be different.”
About 63 percent of women have done research on their mobile devices before securing a purchase online, compared to the 52 percent of men, a study conducted by RhythmOne.
Going online and finding exactly what you need at the price you can afford can be a thrill for some shoppers like Jung.
“I like the hunt and I like trying to find an item I saw on someone on the street or in a commercial by digging deep online,” Jung said. “I also love getting good deals. Often you can find products in stores online for cheaper if you look hard enough.”
