Men hate to shop. That’s no obstacle to a new breed of Singapore startups

Guys around the world let out a cathartic sigh when Miserable Men went viral on Instagram. The account depicts bored guys waiting at shopping malls for their wives and girlfriends, highlighting the inescapable stereotype that women love to shop, and for a long time.

Enter ecommerce, which frees men from the waiting while still giving women the retail therapy they crave. Fashion ecommerce in particular hugely accommodates women, which is not surprising. In the US, women’s apparel sales grew to US$116 billion, compared to US$60.8 billion for men.

But males are becoming increasingly important in fashion retail, and a new crop of startups want to capitalize on that. In Singapore, online store Edit Suits Co caters to men who want custom tailored shirts. The twist is that it sends outfitters to the customer’s physical location to take his measurements.

“Men are lazy shoppers, but they’re loyal. Great service counts, and if you convince them you’re brilliant, they will stick to your brand until something drastic happens. The women’s market, on the other hand, is temperamental,” says co-founder Reto Peter, who was formerly a managing director at Zalora, a prominent online fashion retail store by Rocket Internet.

Edit Suits has gained a following among young, hotshot finance and banking professionals in Singapore. Corporate sales form a huge part of its strategy, and it has sent outfitters down to banks and financial institutions where many of its customers work. It received angel funding from the co-founders of RedMart, an online groceries startup in Singapore.

Peter can’t reveal specific numbers, but he says that the average shopping cart contains about three to four shirts.

Lucrative niche

E-commerce has largely been about giving customers a buffet of choices and hoping they will bite on one of the items. Recommendation engines then suggest even more products to the user, and the cart could fill up in no time. This flow adheres to women’s shopping behavior in physical retail stores.

In recent years though, new ecommerce models have emerged to appease men, starting with the luxury wear segment, a group that’s more predisposed to shopping online.

In San Francisco, Trumaker, which Edit Suits models itself after, has blazed a trail by raising US$8.4 million from investors. Chicago startup Trunk Club, a personalized clothing service for men, has received US$12.4 million in funding. In Vancouver, Canada, Indochino has also brought tailored suits online, completing a US$13 million round in the process.

“For [men], the shopping experience is less about exploration and more about being informed about what they should be buying,” says Ashma Kunde, a global apparel research analyst for market research firm Euromonitor International, in a New York Times article.

Frederico Marchetti, CEO of luxury online fashion retail company Yoox Group, echoes the sentiment. “Men don’t shop; they buy. Men spend 30 percent less time browsing online than women, viewing fewer pages before purchasing, which shows why online shopping is the perfect solution for them.”

This wave of men’s ecommerce has spread to Singapore. Tate & Tonic, founded by Matteo Sutto, another Rocket Internet alumnus, offers a Trunk Club-inspired service where men pick their style preferences and receive a box of fashion products customized for them. The customer then picks the items he likes and returns the rest. Users pay for the products they pick, but not shipping and return.

A different breed

Gotta love logistics