While High Street business might not be so hot, online sales at M&S have reportedly increased by 34% in the year to the end of March 2009. At the same time, the giant retailer claimed its sales now account for 5.3% of the UK’s on-line clothing market, a jump of almost 1% on 2008.

So it seems that the company’s fall in pre-tax profits to £704m, down from £1bn, could have been so much worse without the on-line sales boost. For while on-line sales were up, M&S witnessed a drop in food and general merchandise sales in-store with a concluding overall sales value rise of only 0.4%, when compared to the previous year.

Yet more evidence, it seems, of the ever increasing power and worth of on-line retailing.

A new study reports that women keep their personal and business lives separate when it comes to social media. According to the 2009 Women in Social Media Study, while women see blogs as a good source of info about products and purchases, most (75%) use social networks solely for keeping in touch with family and friends.

The survey also revealed that a third of women who use social networks are loyal to just one, for example Facebook or Twitter.

In another revelation, it appears that following a purchase women bloggers are twice as likely to share a positive purchase experience on blogs and message boards and about 40% more likely to share a negative experience.

Without being sexist, or in any way gender biased, research has revealed are some definite differences between men and women when it comes to shopping. For e-tailers there are a few tips worth taking into account when considering the look and content of your website.

For starters, you should consider who is the main audience for your site. Once you know this then you can begin to make it attractive to that particular gender, or to both. And remember that surveys claims that women make 85% of purchase decisions among couples and families.

The task
Websites for men: Guys like to get a task done and move on to the next one. So keep sites simple and to the point.

Websites for women: Girls like to “experience” the task so they might head off at tangents within the site, just to check something out, before coming back to the original page. Good, lively info is what the girls enjoy most.

Usability
Websites for both: Something that both genders agree on is the importance of ease of use. Check out your own site and see how easy it upload or download or purchase.

Websites for men: Men prefer download speed over easy navigation.

Websites for women: Women place both easy navigation and accessibility ahead of download speed.

Purchasing experience
Websites for men: Guys want to sign in, see a product, buy it and leave. Full stop. They do not want any help and they want to go through the check asap.

Websites for women: The girls want a shopping “experience”. They will look at and weigh up all the options, taking their time to decide on a purchase. The might put up with a slower more informed check-out process but it’s not a good idea to make them hang around too long before showing your site their bank card details.

The sales
Websites for men: Men like sales items and coupons because it narrows the choices and provides an incentive to buy one particular product.

Websites for women: While girls like the sales for the opposite reason that there might be a lot more options. They like the choice and the chance to buy something for less.

Pictures
Websites for women: Girls will focus on faces and pay special attention to pictures of romantic couples.
Websites for men: Men, as in real life, focus on other parts of the body (!) and don’t give any special attention to couples.

Colours
Websites for both: Men and women agree that blue is their favoured website colour. As both genders get older they like more blue and less green.  Both men and women hate brown and orange.

Websites for men: Purple is one of the least liked colours of men.

Websites for women: As well as blue, girls like purple.

Let the battles commence!