The Online Shopping Habits of College Aged Women
If you do a quick Google search for “college women and online shopping”, you get about 6,190,000,000 results. Websites like this one and this one send an underlying message: if you’re in college, a female and don’t shop online — you are in the minority.
The options are almost endless. There are TikToks that proclaim the best Amazon finds and influencers who showcase their Amazon storefront on almost all of their social media accounts.
It’s a surround sound proclamation: online shopping, made even more popular by the pandemic, is here to stay. And one of its prime target groups is teenage girls and young adult women.
About 89% of Gen Z-ers shop online and 91% of Millennials shop online, according to this data.
Jaeda Rogers, a junior exercise science major, uses online shopping to buy gym clothes, such as leggings and tops, and skincare. She says she relies on it because of its ease and availability. Some of her favorite stores do not have a physical building in which shoppers can go, thus, online shopping.
One of her favorite brands to buy online is Gymshark, an Australian company known for its durable, compressive gym clothing. She also has used online shopping to help her find the perfect dress for a friend’s wedding.
Without online shopping, she would have no way to buy clothing from Gymshark. It is the web that gives her access to it.
“It’s easy, it’s convenient and a lot of these companies that I buy things (from) don’t have stores in person, so you have to buy online,” she said.
Rogers estimated that she spends about two to four hours per week either browsing online or actively shopping. However, it’s not a habit she hopes to continue, she said.
“I feel very negative about it (my online shopping habits),” she said. “I’m a college kid. I can’t be spending all this money on stuff that isn’t needed, but it’s always fun to get a package.”
Lauren Shank, a senior studying journalism, online shops for similar reasons: it saves her gas and time. She also finds that if she knows her sizes, shopping online is much easier.
“With online shopping, if you already know your sizes, it’s much nicer, because you’re just able to get online,” she said. “You have a wider variety, and then just pick out whatever you want and then you don’t even have to leave your home.”
Shank, like many other women, typically buys jeans, shoes and sweaters, but also a little bit of everything else.
“It’s kind of a mix of everything,” she said. “A lot of times, I’ll get jeans. … I literally buy everything online. I’ll get shoes, sweaters, long sleeves, short sleeves, athletic wear, all of that stuff.”
With the rise of online thrift stores (like Depop) and exclusively online storefronts (like Shein), the fiery momentum that online shopping is carrying will not die down anytime soon. Will online shopping ever completely erase in-store shopping? Probably not anytime in the near future, but it certainly has risen to permanent status.
