Gender and E-Commerce: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The authors consider the role of gender as it relates to e-commerce and offer a conceptual framework that attempts to explain why women are less satisfied than men with the online shopping experience. Perceived emotional benefits are discussed as a primary reason women lack support for e-commerce activity. Additional concepts in our model include trust (i.e., skepticism) and practicality (i.e., convenience). Our survey findings revealed that these three concepts emotion, trust, and convenience predicted women s dissatisfaction (and men s satisfaction) with online shopping, as well as men and women s actual shopping behavior. The authors offer ideas to help e-marketers form stronger emotional bonds with female shoppers.