Have you ever thought about the different ways that your e-commerce business that you could appeal to men and women? It’s fair to say that many men and many women thinking different ways. Of course, we’ll be generalising for each gender here but it is worth taking note of how the majority of men might make a purchase from or utilise a website.

Here a four generalised gender differences (we’re not out to upset anyone here, it’s just a majority observation):

Time: Men do not tend to be browsers. They will often buy something they see as soon as they see it. 
It’s a kind of “get what I want when I see it” thing. In contrast, women a more likely to look around, observe, save a few items and then come back to purchase a product.

Black & White: 

Men like things to be clearly labelled and won’t waste time on something vague. They will prefer layouts with single products and are less likely to be taken by collections of items. In this way men tend to buy individual items, while women will be more swayed by collections of items/clothing/outfits.

Navigation:
Men relate to space as compartmented and sequential. Men give directions as place names and grid references while more women will talk about bearing left at a shop, or church. So men will prefer a website that is very clearly navigable and will be less likely to stay on a site that has poor labeling and navigation.

Colour: Men tend to prefer neutral colour schemes or else ones with blues, black, reds and darker colours. But at the end of the day colour will not sway a man as much as a woman. Women, in contrast, will be more likely to be attracted to prettier websites.

As we said, this are generalised comments but if you are designing a website that is aimed predominantly at men or at women then it may pay to have a think about look and tone.

Tags: web design, Website Design

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 13th, 2010 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Ecommerce, Website Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Posted by WebCreationUK You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.