Business & Money | Tuesday 5 March, 2019 12:01 pm |

Danube Online, the Kingdom’s largest e-commerce grocery platform, is marking International Women’s Day by sharing some interesting online shopping trends of male and female shoppers from the Danube App.

International Women’s Day is a collective day of global celebration and with this year’s theme being ‘balance for better’, Danube Online, which has acquired millions of monthly active users since its launch in 2017 and continues to expand across the Kingdom, celebrated the occasion by revealing gender parities and gaps in online grocery shopping behavior from the Danube App.

When it comes to healthy-eating, in the past year, Danube Online observed an almost identical rise in demand amongst female and male shoppers for health-related products. This category includes fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains and organic products. The trend is seen alongside a dip in demand for highly processed food amongst males and females and is in line with global trends of millennials who prefer fresh and organic food. 

Across baby product categories, interestingly, data collated over the last 12 months show an increase of over 5 percent in male customers buying baby products. During the same period, there was a 5 percent decrease in Danube Online female customers ordering the same products; bringing the gender ratio buying patterns in this category more in balance. Preferred payment methods amongst Danube App customers saw the biggest discrepancy between male and female shoppers with men actually 10 percent more likely to pay by credit card than women. However, over the past year there has been a huge increase in credit card payments generally across female and male Danube App customers; over 600 percent for women and over 500 percent for men. 

“At Danube Online we are proud to celebrate International Women’s Day. We want to do our bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal and rewarding, in line with Vision 2030. We know balance drives a better working world. We are committed to a gender-balanced workforce and to prove it we have boosted our ratio of female Danube Online staff this year to just over 20 percent” said Danube Online, co-founder and CEO, Mr. Majed M Al Tahan.  He continued; “A great fact from our online shopping behavior data is the gender gap narrowing across the baby product categories.  From this insight, we can surmise that one of the ways new fathers in the Kingdom are supporting their wives with the arrival of newborns is taking on the tasks of grocery shopping. Online shopping can be a convenient fast way to get these items at home and it’s a nice trend to observe.”

Danube Online was awarded the ‘Industry Excellence in Food & Beverages’ award at the Saudi Top Achiever Awards, in partnership with the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce last week, and to celebrate International Women’s Day is running a range of marketing promotions for female shoppers during the week. 

International Women’s Day is on Friday March 8th, 2019.  #IWD2019