Look, Men Shop Online, Too!

As it turns out, for males, the Internet is not just about fantasy football and porn.

A new report by digital marketing agency iProspect finds that millions of affluent men are using the Internet for research and shopping — and spending a boatload of money.

It has long been assumed that women are the dominant shoppers online, and that if you were to start a company, it should be aimed at the female wallet. Well, here’s some testosterone to shoot down that argument.

IProspect identified a population of 19 million men over the age of 18 who make at least $100,000 and are frequently shopping online.

More of the report’s findings:

  • 40 percent of respondents are shopping online at least twice a week, and those who are shopping multiple times are spending in excess of $30,000 annually.
  • Luxury menswear in particular is benefiting, and is growing at a rate of about 14 percent every year.
  • 70 percent of men in this demographic research and buy online, as opposed to researching online and then purchasing in the store.
Several e-commerce start-ups that have cropped up over the past couple of years are targeting this demographic, perhaps unknowingly. They include apparel sites like Gilt Groupe, Bonobos, Trunk Club, J. Hilburn and Indochino. The top Web sites visited are Amazon (41 percent), Yahoo (37 percent), Google (29 percent) and eBay (20 percent).

To put the market into perspective, here’s a pretty — albeit manly — infographic from iProspect:

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