Male Shoppers and Social Values

I recently presented some of our shopper research to a meeting of international colleagues at an Iris network conference and was showing the share of grocery trips taken by gender.

In Canada, we estimate that 39% of all trips (including personal care, quick trips etc.) are made by males shopping alone. My colleagues from Netherlands and Germany expressed surprise and assumed that these numbers would be different in their markets.

It was only our Australian colleague who suggested it would be similar in Australia. Canada and Australia and similar in many respects (although it is slightly colder here). But two facts would drive this in my opinion - both are highly urbanized (hence a higher incidence of quick trips) and both are fairly "progressive" in terms of social values. We often contrast with the relatively low % agreement with the statement that "the man is always head of the household" in Canada with that in the US. This could certainly impact shopping styles ...will investigate this further.

Men be Shopping

Quite a lot of them in Canada actually. And they like it. New research sponsored by MasterCard confirms and expands on this. You can download a summary of the report from their website. (Full disclosure: Environics did the research).

Interesting stuff. And it confirms what I always thought. It's not that men don't like shopping. They just don't like shopping for other people.