Men don’t set a day aside to shop for things. For us, it’s just another ephemeral and periodic exercise that serves a functional purpose in our lives. So it’s no surprise that when you walk into most merchandising environments, whether it be malls or department stores, they’re needlessly immersive and distracting. After all, these environments are often built with female customers in mind.

But that’s not to say that men don’t like to shop. It’s quite the opposite. We just don’t like to shop the way women do. And sadly, how we discover and purchase products has so far been ignored or largely misunderstood by retailers.

According to various studies, when it comes to shopping, men value the following:

• Time: Men do not want to spend a lot of their time shopping for something. They are all about “getting in and out”.
• Navigation: Men like to find what they are looking for easily.
• Purpose: Men look for things keeping specific functional needs in mind.
• Outcome: Men prefer to maintain a look of individuality that assists their desire to dominate.
• Loyalty: Men are willing to return to a product consistently if they believe it is suiting their needs.

Unsurprisingly, the conventional shopping experience fulfills only a few of the criteria noted above, and that too quite haphazardly. Time and navigation certainly aren’t among them. Having to get out of the house, travel, and search through an usually large and distracting retail landscape isn’t entirely intuitive or functional.

So what are men to do? Continue following our girlfriends, wives, and mothers into retail labyrinths in hopes of finding what we set out to purchase? Fortunately not.

The web and mobile platforms are transforming the shopping experience for men. And the numbers prove it. A 2012 study by the NPD Group found that the online men’s clothing market is growing 25% faster than women’s. This gap is expected widen. Moreover, the overall online fashion market is expected to grow 78% to $73 billion by the year 2016, with men’s online fashion fuelling over half of that growth.

It is important to understand the growth within the industry. The Internet is conducive to the male shopping experience as it allows men to research very specific products intensely without any anxiety. They appreciate the ability to go in and out of online stores in minutes after having found and purchased a desired item. And last but not least, the web and mobile platforms reinforce convenient ways to instill loyalty among retailers who get it right.

Although men have been overlooked for decades when it comes to shopping, it’s nice to see a major shift in our favour. Let’s see how things continue to pan out over the next little while.

- Qasim