More American Women Than Men Go Online

" More women than men surf the Net.
That's a conclusion of online marketing firm eMarketer Inc., which issued study results Thursday saying that girls and women represented 51.6% of Americans online last year. While females make up about 51% of the U.S. population, and that ratio is expected to hold in the coming years, the proportion of girls and women on the Web should grow to 52.6% by 2008, according to eMarketer.
That's a big change from the early days of the Internet, when males dominated. As recent as 1997, boys and men made up three-quarters of Internet users. "

Another indicator of the continuing evolution of the internet! The likely immediate impact of this particular shift in the population on the 'net is a coming change in the way shopping sites have to work. This article predicts that "offering a page of thumbnail images of blouses" will longer be sufficient to capture the consumer dollar. Instead, "retailers must use the power of the Internet to build customized shopping experiences tailored to a woman's browsing or previous buying patterns."

For small business marketeers, this means paying more attention to how you design your site. The simple, mechanical approach of throwing all your product up on line is not going to continue to work for you. You will have to be more creative to remain competitive!