Chapter 9: The Internetsavvy Woman - Connecting with her Online

Overview

Spend a day with even a handful of American women and you'll see that going online has become a way of life for them ”for gathering information, shopping and communicating with friends and family. So, to reach women where they are already assembling, you have to go online too.

Consumers are heading online in huge numbers . In fact, 10 million U.S. consumers were predicted to have gone onto the Internet during 2003, a growth of 6.5 percent over 2002. ^[1] To put that into perspective, in 2004 there are nearly two times as many online households as off-line households. What a difference a few years make!

More specifically , women comprise a slight majority of the total U.S. at-home Web population ”52 percent female versus 48 percent male. ^[2] And, there's every indication that their numbers online will continue to increase rapidly .

Women are online for both community and shopping. In December 2002 alone, women's online communities, including sites like iVillage.com and Womensforum.com, reached approximately 30 percent of all female Internet users age 25 to 64, attracting a total of nearly 35 million visitors . ^[3] The segment of the online population that actually shops there, the majority of which is women, will grow 29 percent, from 93 million in 2002 to 121 million in 2005. ^[4] The amount online shoppers in general will spend at e-retail will skyrocket 93 percent, from $45.5 billion in 2002 to $88.1 billion in 2005.

^[1] According to New York-based eMarketer, Inc., as reported on Internetretailer.com, February 12, 2003, http://www.internetretailer.com/dailynews.asp?id=8626. Also see http://www.emarketer.com/.

^[2] Nielsen \\NetRatings, New York, May 2001, http://www.nielsennetratings.com.

^[3] ComScore Media Metrix, 2002, http://www.comscore.com.

^[4] North America E-Commerce: B2C & B2B , report (New York: eMarketer, Inc., 2003), http://www.emarketer.com.