!44: Men and Their Shopping Habits - Some Interesting Facts

!±8± Men and Their Shopping Habits - Some Interesting Facts

Today the number of men who are responsible for shopping is growing at a very fast rate. This is due to a couple of main reasons, one being that the number of single men is rising, and the other reason is that with more and more women working and following their own careers, more men are becoming the food providers and shoppers of the family.

Interestingly, the way that men shop and cook is often quite different to not only the way that married men and single women do, but is also at odds with some popular beliefs and traditional assumptions. Having said which, it is true that twice as many men as women choose takeaway food as a dinner substitute, and the most popular takeaways are Indian and Chinese. This is one myth that is rooted firmly in fact.

But there are some interesting facts that have come to light after some recent research looked into the cooking and shopping habits of this growing proportion of the populations. For example, most women buy their shopping based on habit. They tend to buy things that they always buy, getting the same sort of things each week. Single men on the other hand tend to plan their shopping much more.

Thinking about meals, ingredients and compiling a list might seem more the sort of thing our mothers might have been good at doing, and whether it is down to a lack of confidence in making their minds up when actually at the shops, or just a deep seated need to plan and be prepared is hard to say, but certainly research has shown single men to be the more planned shoppers. They also tend to use convenience stores and local shops more than single women do, who tend to use the larger supermarkets more for their shopping.

A fact, which will startle many marketing firms, is that when shopping in supermarkets or convenience stores, only 4% of men expressed any interest at all in promotions or offers which were for non-food products. Household goods seem to be a blind spot for most single men who prefer to go for these items on purpose rather than being spontaneous when presented with a good deal. The most popular deal with single men is the 'buy one get one free', for fairly obvious reasons.

It might be assumed that single men tend to have fairly bland or repetitive diets, but in fact the opposite is true. Research has shown that most single men actually crave variety, and will go to friends for suggestions as their first port of call. Single women tend to go to their mothers and to cook books for ideas and suggestions, but men tend to draw on ideas from their social network, and actually seem to be quite keen to have a variety of dishes and flavours rather than the commonly held belief that it's curry every night.

In fact, research has gone on to demonstrate that single men prefer traditional British food rather than Indian or Chinese, turning this myth completely on its head. So, rather than stereotyping single men in ways we often see on television, this research has shown the growing proportion of single male shoppers is a market well worth a second look.