How men and women shop at Galaxus

If you hate clichés, then you shouldn’t read any further. This is because the consumer behaviour at Galaxus, broken down by gender, is peppered with findings that may reinforce stereotypes.

Let’s start with the products that men and women order most frequently from our online department store. Last year, women ordered diapers, cat food and craft supplies, followed by other household and family items (see visuals).

Although men also often buy diapers, they only came in ninth place in the 2023 bestseller ranking. And apart from Lego in tenth place, the genders don’t share any other favourites when shopping online at Galaxus. Instead, men like batteries and rechargeable batteries, USB cables and smartphone cases.

The survey includes sales in all Galaxus markets, namely Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. In Switzerland, orders placed at the IT and electronics specialist Digitec were also taken into account. On the other hand, sales to business customers were excluded.

Online shopping: starters for men, dessert for women

Men and women also shop at different times, although the differences are more subtle than in the top products they buy. According to the Galaxus data, men are more likely to order before lunch, before dinner and at night. Women, on the other hand, seem to have the time and desire to shop online after lunch and after dinner.

There are also differences in the devices used by Galaxus customers to shop. More than half of women do so on their phones. Men, on the other hand, prefer using a computer in six out of ten cases. One reason for this could be that the level of employment is higher for men than for women. As a result, men spend more time at the computer – and a quick online shop can be done on the side. Tablets, meanwhile, are used relatively rarely by both men and women.

Women are also more inclined to protect the climate: they offset 14 per cent of their purchases, whereas men only donate a chunk to the climate in 11 per cent of their orders.

Women on the rise

For a long time, men dominated online shopping: in 2014, men still accounted for 83 per cent of all purchases at Galaxus. However, the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. In this survey, «male» purchases are defined as purchases made with a customer account labelled as male (you specify your gender when you open an account at Galaxus). Of course, men sometimes also shop for the rest of the household. The same applies to women.

Be that as it may, over the last ten years, the proportion of women in all Galaxus purchases has risen from 17 to 43 per cent. The coronavirus pandemic brought additional momentum to the development. Between 2019 and 2021, the proportion of women rose by 11 percentage points from 28% to 39%. As many stores were closed during the lockdown, many women seemingly discovered online shopping for themselves. Since then, the trend has levelled off again somewhat, but the proportion of women grew by another percentage point last year.

If we turn our attention to the active customers who ordered something from Galaxus at least once in 2023, the gender ratio is almost balanced with 48 women for every 52 men. However, men continue to order more regularly from Galaxus – and because they buy a relatively large number of IT and electronics products, they’re also responsible for more sales.

Finally, let’s take a look at the age distribution of active customers. It’s striking that the age cohorts between 30 and 39 and 40 and 49 are the largest for both genders. However, men over 50 and men under 20 are comparatively more likely to shop online than women in the same age groups.

What do you think of the gender differences at Galaxus? Do you conform to the shopping stereotypes of your gender? Have you noticed any other interesting details? Let us know in the comments!