Women Online Past, Present and Future

last updated 2009 Nov 18
(the old page  http://www.witiger.com/ecommerce/womenonline2002.htm )
 
 

This web page has audio clips - just click on the icon (like the one to the left) and you can hear Prof. Richardson's voice adding additional information to topics on the page.

turn on your speakers to hear audio clips

..

.

This page used in the following courses taught by Prof. Richardson . MGT D06 CCT 322 MGD 415 MRK 410, 610, 619 BCS 555 This page deals with   oBrief Background of Women Online:    oThe Growth of Women Internet Users   oThe Past: A Look at Women Online Over The  Years   oThe Present:  Women Online in 2004   oFacts About Women & the Internet From Past to Present   oInternet Oriented Products Designed With Women In Mind   oWomen, E-Commerce, and the Internet: True Stories   oHow To Target Your E-Business Towards Women   oWebsites and Portals Strictly For Women   oWomen and E-Business In The Future.

..
This page has been brought to you by SNRG.
This dynamic team, pronounced SYNERGY, is made up of two extremely intelligent women:
Sabrina Naqvi and Reetu Gupta, who were in MGTD06 at University of Toronto in the Sept-Dec 2004 session

Sabrina Naqvi - update 2009 Nov - rcvd an email from Sabrina that she had been accepted into the MBA program at Schulich at York University	Reetu Gupta

 

How this unit came about

From 2001 - mid-2004 Prof. Richardson had a brief page about "Women Online" in respect of the growing web presence of women as students, women online customers and women running e-businesses. As it became apparent that there was more and more interest in some of the unique aspects of women's use of online services, there was seen to be a need to have the content in "Women Online" updated, and , more interestingly, written from the perspective of women.  Sabrina Naqvi and Reetu Gupta where two students in Prof. Richardson's internet marketing class at the University of Toronto in the Sept-Dec 2004 semester. Sabrina and Reetu formed a team they called SNRG and they worked together in October and November 2004 to update this page, add some fresh content, and oriented the content to represent their "demographic" - that is to say, they put in the "pink" colours and other imagery, not me ;-) anyhoo it was a good job and I appreciate their research, compilation and design. Since November 2004 there have been a few additions, from female, and male students, but the majority of the content was, and still is, the work of Sabrina Naqvi and Reetu Gupta. Witiger 2006 Oct 20

.

Background:   Women Online In traditional marketing, we describe people who are the first users of a new product as "innovators", then a few more try it and we call them "early adopters". It is important to understand that the innovators and early adopters of a product are sometimes not representative of the final mass group of consumers and therefore the product goes through changes. A good example of how a product goes through changes is the case of pocket pagers. Pocket pagers are no longer exclusively used by heart surgeons and ambulance drivers. As the pager has become more widespread in use among young urban people in Asia, Europe and North America it has gone through many physical changes in appearance and services offered as it reflects the interests of the purchasers. In the case of the internet, innovators and early adopters of the web sites and their content were teenage and 20/30 something men in North America. While this group still remains a large number of people who browse sites, this demographic is growing slower than senior aged people, people outside North America, and women of all ages. The articles noted below serve to show how the main group of web users has evolved to be different from the early adopters. Over the past few years women have created a niche for themselves in the internet world. The start of the new meillennium changed the demographics of the internet users. Women started catching up to men in the number of average internet use, as well as the amount of other online activity including online shopping, online banking, the use of e-mail as well as portals.  Presently the gender split for the number of internet users in the USA as well as Canada, is tied among men and women. Women have proven to be savy internet users making well informed decisions. The increasing percentage of women online has created communities dedicated to female issues ranging from small business support to learning online support, all over the World Wide Web. Sites such as www.studioxx.org and The Canadian Women's Internet Directory link users with Canadian women's equality resources online. The directory connects organizational and individual sites promoting awareness of women’s equality issues, debates, campaigns, activism, creativity, services, research and policy issues. A resource created by Womenspace Association, with support from Status of Women Canada. These resources are made available to women by women online.  Not only is the average female internet user capable of using online services to their advantage, but they are further able to manipulate the web and create valuable information depots and use the web as an advertising tool for themselves and their businesses. The focus of this page, womenonline.htm, has evolved in the past few years.  In the late 1990's and early 2000's there was a great deal of coveragae on the rise of the women online. On of the things that SNRG noted is that In the year 2004 the focus is not so much on the rise of women online, but how this rise is affecting e-ecommerce and technological advances.  -WTGR and SNRG

 

The Past: A look at Women Online in the beginning of the new Millennium

"Women" Customers 2000       "WHO"  is using the Internet

Gender Distribution of Canadian Shoppers in January of 2000 Source: Ernst & Young (January, 2000 )  The chart to the immediate left was found Sept 27th, 2000 and we have added it in here because it serves to show that Canadian women have, in a short period of time, moved from 22% to more than 50% of Canadian online shoppers.

.

The Past: A look at Women Online in the beginning of the new Millennium

"WHO" is using the Internet "Women"  Customers 2000

Gender Distribution of Online Shoppers in December 2000 Here is some more current information on Canadian women shoppers and you can see that it is now roughly 50/50 This information was gathered by Ernst & Young in December 2000 and shows that the percentage of women shoppers has grown from 21 % in 1999 38 % in Sept 2000 49 % in Dec 2000 So we can conclude that the % of women online in Canada is growing very fast

.s

The J.C. Williams Canadian Online Study

Women Online 2001 a great interest to companies marketing products to women

If you go to the J.C. Williams site in September 2000, they don't mention the Sept 1999 report but you can find  noted that "June 14, 2000 - DoubleClick Inc. the leading global Internet advertising solutions company today announced the release of the first wave of findings from the Canadian Women Online Study."  formerly at http://www.jcwg.com/doubleclick-press.htm Key findings from the first wave of the Canadian Women Online Study: "7 in 10 female Canadian Internet users use the Internet during the shopping process"  "46% of female Canadian Internet users have made a purchase online, and 26% use the Internet to browse or shop for products before purchasing offline"  "The percentage of female Canadian Internet users who have made an online purchase has grown by 21% since October 1999"

.
                          The Present: A look at Women Online in the year 2008

YanYan Y., a University of Toronto student (UTM) in March 2008 sent an email to update some of the information within this page YanYan explains "I was going through the women online section for my project and I  realized that many of the information and statistics are outdated.  According to this article,  http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1004775, from April 2007,  women online have outnumbered men online and it's likely to stay this  way! I still agree with many of the information on your site though."

YanYan adds
"Here are some numbers and projections of the online population into  the year 2012
http://techcrunchies.com/gender-distribution-of-american-internet-population/

2007: 90.8 million males and 97.3 million females
2008: 93.5 million males and 100.4 million females
2009: 96.4 million males and 103.7 million females
2010: 99.3 million males and 106.9 million females
2011: 101.9 million males and 110 million females
2012: 104.1 million males and 112.8 million females"

YanYan concludes by saying
"From what I experience now in 2008, I can see how much  women online have grown to use the Internet for a vast array of  things. I think women just had a slower online experience than men did  when Internet was first introduced but I think the projected numbers  above are quite accurate!

This is why e-commerce should heavily target women, in terms of  products and services, aesthetics of their websites. Especially since  there are more women shoppers online. "
 

The Present: A look at Women Online in the year 2004

Women Online 2004                           Women Online 2004                         Women Online 2004

The following graph depicts internet usage from the year 2000 to 2004. It shows a comparison of internet usage between men and women.  A steady increase is seen in the percentage  of women using the internet since 2000.  -In 2000 the amount of women that used the Internet was lower then the amount of men that  used the Internet. In only 4 years, women have reached almost the same level of internet usage as men.     The chart above is a summary of a chart from the Pew website.  Click on the screen capture below of the Pew Site, go to the 'Latest Trends' area on the bottom of the page, then click on 'usage over time' to find the chart in excel format. When visiting this website you can download the full report in Adobe PDF format: They also have other articles titled "Shopping and gift buying online, the overall  e-shopping picture "

.
 

Facts About Women and The Internet-Past to Present

Women in past and present

ONLINE SHOPPING AMONG CANADIAN WOMEN IN 2003 Further results from the Canadian Women Online Study show that online shopping has grown by 7% since July 2003 among Canadian women from 46% of female Internet users in July 2002 to 49% of female Internet users having made a purchase on the Internet . Certain categories experienced the most dramatic increases including books (up 6% to 55% of buyers) gifts (up 6% to 31% of buyers) and women’s clothing (up 8% to 27% of buyers).” “In three months we have seen a significant increase in the percentage of women who have made a purchase on the Internet”, declared Muller. “And, key female categories are gaining momentum including women’s apparel and health and beauty”, According to ActivMedia, U.S. online retail is growing nearly 20 times faster than offline retail growth rates. The online population is growing at a staggering rate too, and its composition is slowly changing to reflect the demographic attributes of the general public. Four years ago, the typical Internet user was likely to be an affluent and well-educated young, white male. As we move into the future, this individual: is likely to be female. 58% of all new Internet users are women. (ActivMedia) ONLINE BANKING The second wave of the Canadian Women Online Study revealed that 55% of Canadian female Internet users bank online in 2003. The reasons for banking online were varied. The following table identifies reasons for banking online (all that apply): Of those banking online… Saves the hassle of going to the bank 76% Saves time 72% More convenient than other banking methods 68% I prefer to bank at non-traditional hours 66% Saves money/eliminates service fees 25% - Canadian women indicate a preference for Internet banking for many financial transactions and 1 in 4 use the Internet to research investment options

..

Women in past and present

ONLINE RESEARCH DoubleClick Inc. (NASDAQ:DCLK), the leading global Internet advertising solutions company today announced the release of the third wave of findings from the Canadian Women Online Study.  The Women and Automotive report is the third wave of the Canadian Women Online Study, the first nationally representative study that examines the effect of the Internet on the browsing and buying habits of Canadian women. This study revealed that more Women today will research their next vehicle purchase online before making the actual decision and before making the purchase. Moreover, the results also demonstrate that 75% of women Internet users research their Travel related purchases online before making a purchase, and between 50% and 60% of them research items such as Electronics, Computer Hardware and Software over the Internet before making a purchase decision. The majority of women today use the Internet as their prime research tool. -SNRG and Radha Calu

.

Gender issues in health care treatment and research
as reflected in webpage content online

Gender issues in health care Online

. I have been curious about ways to quantify the differences in how society (as it might be reflected in internet content) treats the importance of several health care issues which are seen in the public arena as belonging to a specific gender. WTGR . Searches In Yahoo in 2002 "breast cancer" 1,730,000 hits "prostrate cancer" 9,720  hits . "women's health" 1,070,000 hits "men's health"  493,000 hits . ."breast augmentation" 77,100 hits "penile augmentation" 450 hits "female doctor" 11,700 hits "male doctor" 6,080 hits . female medical issues 766,000 hits male medical issues 715,000 hits . women health policy 2,960,000 hits men health policy 2,100,000 hits What these tables reflects is not very scientific, and there are loads of things you could say to explain the discrepancies, but in terms of a simple measure of content on pages, it seems to indicate that there are more web pages that have content dealing with women's health, compared to men's health. It might be a stretch to infer that there are therefore more pages online being created for women than men, but, in some categories of topics, it does appear to be this way. Searches In Yahoo in April 2005 "breast cancer" 13 million hits "prostrate cancer" 92,000  hits . "women's health" 12.9 million hits "men's health"  8.3 million hits "female doctor" 86,000 hits "male doctor" 41,000 hits .  Searches In Google in October 2007 "breast cancer" 45 million hits "prostrate cancer" 196,000  hits . "women's health" 29 million hits "men's health"  16 million hits "female doctor" 346,000 hits "male doctor" 161,000 hits .

,

Women driving developments of products specifically to women

Products Designed With Women In Mind Renato Calixterio, a student in BCS 555 Sept-Dec 2002 at Seneca, found an interesting article about a Samsung phone which is designed for, and specifically marketed to women  described at  http://mobile.burn.com/review.jsp?Id=178 "Samsung unveiled its latest ladies phone, the SGH-T700 (SGH-T708 for chinese markets). Known  as the Samsung "Drama" T700, this handset carries a unique design that is  very much suited for the female user, resembling that of a cosmetic case ... also includes a calorie meter .....comes with a UFB LCD screen with over 65000 colors and 40-chord polyphonic ringtones."

.

Women driving developments of products specifically to women

Products Designed With Women In Mind Click on the graphic to see the full article   -SNRG PalmOne Fires Up Zire with New Color Handhelds By Keith Regan, E-Commerce Times, 04/28/04 In this article by the E-Commerce Times, Page Murray the Vice President of Marketing at PalmOne says "70 percent of Zire buyers are first-time handheld users and 50 percent are women...It's going to reach out to a demographic that's interested but maybe hasn't taken the plunge yet,"

.

Women driving developments of products specifically to women

Products Designed With Women In Mind NOKIA's 6585 Nokia is launching the new 6585 phone which comes in many different colours. A recent advertisement in Time magazine, displayed the Nokia phone in hot metallic pink alongside a nail polish with the matching colour. Nokia is obviously targeting this new phone towards women and the need for women to be fashion conscious.

.

Women, E-Commerce and the Internet: True Stories

.

Women as Entrepreneurs Riding into the Upscale Baby Market Two women have started a new market niche for upscale baby clothing. The friends are business partners running Baby Outfitters, a specialty retailer of high-end baby gear and clothing. These young entrepreneurs are making their business a click and mortar company, with their first store in the state of Columbia. Although their first year in business was not doing as well as expected, the women did not panic. Instead they focused their energies on what women want in a click and mortar store; customer service. Baby Outfitters has a flexible return policy, a separate team dedicated stricly to web orders, testimonials available for products used, as well a "mommy seal of approval" for many products. Moreover, they take customer feedback seriously and use that to determine what to put into their inventory. After using this strategy, their sales increased and now they are doing quite well. Once they focused in on what matters to their target market, their business succeeded.  -SNRG

.

"WHO"  Is using the Internet women differ greatly in their online finance and payments behavior

For Online Finance, Image Is Everything  By Jack M. Germain, 07/21/04 E-Commerce Times "The online finance industry needs a makeover. Like any product or service presented to consumers, it's all about image...A recent report also revealed that services to new users must target women. The proportion of experienced male and female users is nearly equal. But two out of every three users with less than two years of Internet savvy are women. This is significant...because women differ greatly in their online finance and payments behavior..."  The significance of this article is clearly proven through the many statistics about the increase in women online. Online banking is on the rise, however the issues surrounding online security and the impact it has on potential consumers is also is a great concern to the newer users. So in order to keep both the newer and older consumers satisfied, different types of services such as viewing past bills and cheques should be offered to calm nerves. With these services, efforts must be made to ensure privacy and security to users. Being part of this changing demograhips in online finance, Sabrina and Reetu agree with the content of this article. We have both started using online banking within the past two years, and even though right now our transactions include simple things like bill payments and transfers, we think that offering a variety of  features like viewing old cheques will ensure that we conduct business online in the future. Privacy issues are still present, however recently more online banking companies provide detailed documents in regards to their privacy policies. This allows users to feel confident with banking online and will also result in a greater use of online banking in the future. -SNRG

.

"WHO"  Is Buying this stuff?

Luxury E-Tail: Who's Buying This Stuff?  By Lesley Hensell, 11/18/03 E-Commerce Times "In terms of demographics, online customers who buy luxury brands are primarily women ages 25 to 42. A high percentage of luxury e-tail customers also graduated from college and have income of more than $60,000 per year, Ashford.com vice president Michael Dell'Arciprete told the E-Commerce Times..."  Most men are known to be last minute shoppers. Women on the other hand take the time and research about the product they are about to purchase. Especially if it a more expensive product. So it only makes sense that the new independent women who has the money to buy a diamond necklace for herself rather than wait to a man to buy it for her, would do it in a modern fashion. Especially when sites aware of this new demographic offer a money back guarantee.  -SNRG

.

"WHO"  Is Buying this stuff?

www.braydenking.com/weblog/archives/000088.html a blog of a graduate student in the department of sociology at the University of Arizona Brayden discusses the latest Pew Internet & American Life report on internet use.  "...women and men are just now beginning to do about the same amount of online shopping. Before 2002, more men bought things online than women. Well, sociological studies usually find that women do more shopping (and more housework overall) than do men. By this I mean that women tend to do more shopping for things like clothes, food, and other household necessities. The study also found that men tend to spend more time obtaining information about products online. This is another pattern that is different from shopping in the real world. Marketing experts claim that men spend less time sorting through products in stores and are more likely to buy the first thing they “try on” than women. In other words, women tend to spend more time gathering information about products when shopping offline." "...men and women tend to do different kinds of shopping and that the kind of shopping men do is more accessible on the internet. For example, if women are more likely to do the “household” related shopping (buying food and household necessities) they might be forced to do this offline given the few options online. Men, on the other hand, may be more likely to leisure shop (buy golf clubs, computer games, books, etc.). These kinds of products are readily available online." from a posting by Brayden January 6, 2004

.

WHO is using this stuff?

Making Tech for Women: Sony's Latest Laptop  By Mary Enderle, 08/17/04 E-Commerce Times "Women are looking for aesthetics as well as function when they buy technology, and the x505 is a notebook computer that you might want to share with everyone because it is the ultimate in exquisite design....Companies have started to focus on women as key influencers in the consumer technology purchase cycle."  Despite the higher costs, this sounds like a great product! A lot more women are purchasing laptops these days. A few years ago mostly business men carried a lap top, now the functionality of a lap top has increased significantly. Students use them as their PCs, as well as professionals who travel a lot. So if Sony has a lap top that is light weight and can even fit in a larger purse, it can be said women are not going to be the only ones interested in this product.  -SNRG

What Women Want?
How to target your business towards women

"Just Ask A Woman" written by Mary Lou Quinlan, April 2004, ISBN: 0471369209  This book gives an insight as to what exactly women want from businesses, and how a business can succumb to a woman's needs.  Fact: Today more and more women are using technology to enhance their lives. But women use technology in ways that are purposeful to them. They do not like to use complicated items that has no purpose. They like to use technology in ways to make their hectic lives easier.  Lesson #1: When using technology to create inventions, make the invention in a way that will ease her life.

,

good example: Online Banking The number of women today that use online banking has increased ten-fold. Women find that online banking is very purposeful and convenient to use. bad example: computerized dishwasher A normal household appliance  that now needs a technical expert to use, is not purposeful to women. Fact: When women do online shopping, or research, they will use more than one channel to find out about a brand. They will not just perform online research of shopping in malls, they will rate your brand based on their online experience as well. Women are very purposeful in their online activity. Lesson #2: Online stores should be built like a virtual store. Easy to use, easy to navigate with no hassles. An important aspect of all online sites is customer support; support should be made readily available to users. Example: ivillage.com has recently ridden its site of all pop-up ads in order to make women's experience more relaxing and hassle free. Fact: Majority of women use the internet for research purposes. Women like to use online communities in order to do research. Websites that offers bulletin boards where women can chat and talk to others about a variety of different topics are very useful to women. example: theknot.com A wedding website which has a huge online community where brides-to-be can get advice, mother-in-laws can get advice etc. -SNRG

Chapter 9- The Internet Savvy Woman  Facts: 65% of women will not shop on a poorly designed site, even if it is their favorite brand.     30% of women who are faced with bad websites also stop shopping from their brick & mortar stores.  One bad online experience can ruin a customer's loyalty to that brand of not only their online channel, but their offline channels as well.  The top 5 complaints of Online Shopping-Study from Brigham Univeristy  1)High shipping rates and charges  2)Not being able to properly judge the quality of products  3)The hassle of returning itmes  4)Privacy-will my credit card number be secure?

Tardip G. in BCS 555 in Nov. 2005 emailed to say  "I came across this interesting article by Kim Krause Berg called  "Why E-commerce is Not Ready for My Daughter or Me".

Kim Krause Berg has a number of web pages that contain useful marketing information. See  www.usabilityeffect.com
Contact w Berg was made by email 2005 Nov 29 for permission to quote and link, Copies of emails are kept in the permissions binder.

"Women Make The Best Salesmen" written by Marion Luna Brem, April 2004, ISBN: 0385511620 Quote from pg 214  "Men may have written the first rules of business. That is understandable. They were the only ones allowed to do it at the time. But rules are being rewritten even as you read this. Now that women make up the majority of the buying public, it is only natural that what once worked in sales, doesn't necessarily work anymore."  When marketing towards women, you need to target their needs. Just like a marketing plan towards young teens will differ that of a plan towards the young working adult, a plan for men and women must be different and catered to.  -SNRG

Websites and Portals Strictly For Women!

.

http://www.bizjournals.com/bizwomen/ - This website has journals and book listings about Women and e-commerce. Bizwomen also has events running throughout the year, and allows users to join and attend these events. www.ivillage.com- This website contains information for women from Health to Entertainment and shopping. There are various online communities and discussion boards where women can go to discuss a variety of different topics. One of the most popular websites for women.  www.digital-women.com -provides an International online community for women in business, business women, and all women around the world. Inside you will find free business resources and tools including information about grants for women, free business tips, home business ideas, free marketing and sales tips, how to write a mission statement, free daily planner, how to business articles for women and an opportunity to join and promote your business right here! www.MsMoney.com - Provides women business owners with resources, a community of peers, and a central foundation to help take their business to the next level.The mission of MsMoney Inc. is to educate and empower people to take control of their financial health. We have created a variety of innovative online tools and content that help achieve this goal. MsMoney's products include: interactive seminars, CRM tools, calculators and content. MsMoney also provides specialized consulting services to help organizations with their marketing plans, design needs and women's initiatives.

Websites and Portals Strictly For Women

/	Gender Differences in Communication www.geocities.com/Wellesley/2052/genddiff.html A thought provoking page by academics about the ways men and women think differently, and subsequently interact differently online - which can allow for inferences in consumer patterns

The Future of Women Online

These are some statistics that predict future use of the internet by women based on the growth of women online in the past 3 years · Women will make up 60% of the online population by 2005 (NetSmart Research) · Women consumers online have passed the 10 million mark (CommerceNet) and women make 75% of their families’ financial decisions (Women’s Consumer Network) · *this means that online banking services are predominantly used by women! · 46% of women are decision-makers for technology purposes (Forrester Research) · 41% of women go online daily (Pew Research Center)