Millennial males hitting the supermarket

According to a new eMarketer report, Millennial Men are using their digital smarts to get more involved in family shopping.

According to a new eMarketer report, Millennial Men are using their digital smarts to get more involved in family shopping. This new research showed that "U.S. men are spending more of their lives as the primary shopper in their households and digital is helping them along. " Using data from DDB Worldwide, eMarketer illustrated how the shift is most pronounced among Millennials. For example, Millennial men were more likely than female respondents to shop on auction sites, use retail store apps and comparison shop with their mobile phone. A few more of eMarketer's top findings from the report were; across all the surveyed demographics, men were 4 percent more likely to report that they would prefer to make all of their purchases online. Furthermore, men between the ages of 35 and 64 years old also displayed a preference toward online and mobile shopping. Twenty-nine percent of DDB study respondents in this age group said they would buy everything online, compared to only 26 percent of women. So should retailers focus on men? Not so fast! To exclude women altogether is a mistake. Just a couple of months ago we talked about some studies that reaffirmed women's importance in the retail space, for example according to Nielsen, women made 72% of trips to dollar stores and mass merchants in 2012, as well as 69% of trips to supercenters, 68% to drug, 63% to supermarkets, 61% to wholesale clubs, and 43% to convenience/gasoline outlets. This latest research from eMarketer should help guide retailers to focus some digital efforts towards men, but not at the expense of women.