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Thursday 18 September 2014

Shopaholic Women, the Ecommerce Fuel

                             

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.

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