According to a recent study conducted by GrabOn, India’s leading coupons and deals company; some groundbreaking trend has emerged including the fact that Indian men shop more than their female counterparts.

For centuries and decades, societal patriarchy has always dictated that men were the household’s sole hard-working breadwinners whereas females were painted as traditional housewives with a penchant for splurging their man’s wealth for vanity. This archaic notion is being slowly being dismissed thanks to several women empowerment movements across the globe. However, stereotypes of women being shopaholics whilst men loathing the same activity has been ingrained in people’s mentality during modern times as well. In an era where information technology has created waves of awareness, gender roles are now being rethunk and demographic norms redefined.

One such study that highlighted this change is a survey recently conducted in March 2019 by GrabOn, a coupon and deals agency based in Hyderabad. The Buyer Behavior study took a deep dive into “Customer-Centric Preferences and Buyer Behavior Before Sale”.

This primary research produced some interesting results. Some of the findings include:

• Demographics affect purchase decisions

Men shop more than women. Of all the online shoppers registered in the survey, 52.1% were male and 47.1% of them being females. Males were also shown as the heavy spenders compared to women with a 31:25 ratio in the 1000 - 5000 online expenditure bracket. This corresponds to a 2015 study by a Finance App, BudgetSenseApp.com where they found out that men spend more time shopping than females.

Age too proved no barrier for customers shopping online with an impressive 33.1% of respondents being in the 26-35 age bracket.Economics obviously also influence purchase decisions with more than 50% of the respondents limiting to a net Rs 5000 in their online shopping exploits.

• Psychology plays a part in online shopping

Customers are very perceptive to prices, personal preferences when shopping online. And obviously online retailers are very much aware of this factor making them run promotions accordingly.

Humans have been ingrained with the quality of patience.However, it's not for everyone and this survey did highlight that women are the more patient ones as they waited for upcoming sale periods for price drops compared to males.Wishlisting products is also a vastly untalked about habit as 41.3% of the survey respondents claimed to make carefully planned purchases.

Most Indian customers seemed to pick and choose products based on the item’s sale prices, product/ quality, features of the item, customer requirement and needs, and the innate need to keep up with the market trends.

• Promotional Offers During Sale Periods Are Key

Needless to say, for humans and specifically Indians, words such as “savings”, “discounts” are triggers. People tend to go in to shopping overdrives whenever there is a sale period. And the online retailers have long noticed so and have been playing with customers’ heart and purse strings ever since. This survey reinstated the importance of the presence of discounts and promotional ads running highlight discounts which push them in to making purchases. With a large group of customers also having wishlists ready since almost 3 months, this shows that they are waiting. For the right time. Running promotions during sale periods only helps dormant shoppers transform into active ones.

The survey also sheds light on one of the key areas which is gaining popularity among online shoppers both male and female alike- Gift Cards and e-Gift Vouchers. There’s been an interesting development in the gifting habits of the newer generation. More and more people are moving away from traditional gifting choices and instead opting for e-gift cards. The gift cards offer the recipient, the freedom to choose their own gift. This makes gifting flexible and easier as you don’t have to spend time finding the perfect gift!

Such surveys and research studies are extremely important in today’s age of data science and decision making. Asking customers about their purchase preferences, analyzing psychological tendencies will only help online shopping websites to optimize their promotions accordingly.