Shopping Online: Men vs Women

In July, Gilt Groupe will launch a full site solely for men. The interesting part is that everything will be offered at full-price instead of at a deep discount like Gilt's other brands (Gilt Groupe, Jetsetter, etc). Their reasoning for this is that women view online shopping as an enjoyable past-time: they'll browse multiple times a day - always window shopping and only sometimes purchasing. Whereas men tend to shop online when they need something specific and will pay a premium for quality and convenience.

The discount versus full price conversation is fascinating to me because grooms are increasingly playing a major role in wedding planning. As both brides and grooms are marrying at older ages, with more advanced education and with established careers, grooms are taking on more responsibilities as host and not leaving that title with the father of the bride. They're also more involved in setting up the post-wedding home: 65% of men are involved in the registry process these days. And, now that a majority of couples are paying for a significant portion of their weddings themselves, while a bride may still do more of the initial research, when it comes to handing over the credit card it is typically a joint decision.

Who does your online presence appeal to? Are you speaking to just brides or are you including men too? Don't get so wrapped up in focusing on the traditional wedding purchasers - the bride and mother of the bride - that you ignore an emerging key decision maker: the groom.