1. Women Rule The Web:
Designing Ecommerce Experiences For Women
Shoppers (Part 1)
The companies that will define the future of retail and branding are not necessarily those that
have the bright, shiny new application or shopping widget but are, in fact, those that know their
customers best.
While it feels like we are in a Golden Age of the web, led by consumer internet services and e-
commerce, there’s a little secret that has gone unnoticed by most. This unprecedented rate in
terms of both user adoption and revenue is coming primarily from women. Female users are
the unsung heroines behind the most engaging, fastest growing, and most valuable e-
commerce companies. Especially when it comes to social and shopping, women rule the
Internet.
In ecommerce, female purchasing power is pretty clear. Women spend approximately 20%
more time browsing through shopping sites online than men. While some key categories like
sports, electronics, and outdoor goods are still predominantly controlled by men, women lead
almost every other retail category.
© Rupa Shankar
www.cxpdesign.com

2. Women spend significantly more money and time shopping and browsing online.
So if you are an ecommerce retailer, it’s important not only to know who your audience is, but
also know the factors that will affect their purchase decisions. For example, if you are targeting
women, for example, knowing that women redeem coupons more often than men would be
insightful. Close to 68% of female shoppers use coupons while shopping online. They are also
more likely to shop when there are sales (49% vs 36% for men) and more likely sign up for
loyalty cards and other incentive programs.
We know that men and women shop very differently in the offline world. This is the reason
women’s stores are organized differently than men’s stores. Keeping in mind the growing
importance of women in the marketplace—what makes a package, product, space, or service
© Rupa Shankar
www.cxpdesign.com

3. "female friendly." The two genders also approach online shopping differently. Similar to offline
shopping, men tend to be goal-oriented even when they shop online. Women, on the other
hand, are discoverers and tend to wander among different product categories. Men also tend
to search for information on a specific product page. In contrast, women tend to just scan
information before moving on to the next potential product, often leading to more impulse
purchases from women than from men.
Integrating social media into the shopping experience is also important for women as they tend
to depend on social media more than men when making a purchase decision. Women are also
more likely to recommend a product to friends and family on a social networking site (35% vs
28% for men).
As a ecommerce company, how can this insight help you? Would you benefit from having a
larger base of female customers? If so, what would you change to make your product/service
more attractive to female customers? Do you do enough product and user interface testing
with female users? Have you figured out how to truly unleash the shopping and social power of
women?
Women are the rocket fuel of ecommerce today! You can rock the world if you can figure out
how to harness the power of female customers.
© Rupa Shankar
www.cxpdesign.com

4. About CXP Design
CXP Design (www.cxpdesign.com), founded by Rupa Shankar, is a platform for marketers,
technologists, designers and leaders to discuss and gain a deeper understanding of cross-channel
customer experience design, develop empathy for customer needs and learn how to create
products and services that deliver "wow" experiences for customers.
When we check into a hotel. When we shop on-line. When we buy a pair of shoes. When we get on
a flight. These are experiences by which we measure brands every day. However, most companies
are without the tools to purposefully design those experiences for maximum value. That’s where
CXP Design comes in.
Day in, day out, we live, sleep, eat, breathe and unravel the riddle that is human experience, leading
to more loyal and committed customers for our clients.
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Rupa is an Associate Director at Happiest Minds Technologies (www.happiestminds.com), a next-
generation IT Services & Solutions company at the forefront of Providing Advisory, Implementation and
Managed Services on Social computing, Mobility, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud computing,
Security and Unified Communications. At Happiest Minds, Rupa is responsible for uncovering and
activating innovative digital and social engagement strategies for its clients, spearheading the
development of frameworks and solutions for different industry verticals and enhancing the global go-to-
market strategy. She taps into her past work as both a design practitioner and marketer to help Happiest
Minds clients envision and define broad, end-to-end customer experiences.
© Rupa Shankar
www.cxpdesign.com