By Amy Knight, Co-Founder and Director at Must Have Ideas
If you want to understand the future of e-commerce, you need to understand women. That might sound like a sweeping statement, but in the UK, women influence around 70–80% of all consumer spending, according to a 2024 NielsenIQ report.
A separate analysis from the University of Birmingham reinforces this, highlighting that women make the majority of household purchasing decisions in the UK. And yet, much of the e-commerce world has historically been built with male-centric assumptions about behaviour, value, and urgency.
At Must Have Ideas, we’ve built our business by tapping into the rhythms of everyday life, listening to real customer feedback, and staying deeply curious about what drives our audience, which is overwhelmingly female. It’s not just about selling to women, but understanding how women shop, why they return, and what makes them feel seen.
Emotional connection over algorithmic push
While tech and AI continue to shape the back-end of e-commerce, the front-end experience, how customers feel when browsing or buying, matters more than ever. Research from Deloitte shows that 60% of consumers buy more from brands they feel emotionally connected to, and that connection is particularly powerful among women.
Women often shop with others in mind: families, friends, and households. They value ease, trust, and practical innovation. They also remember how a brand made them feel, not just what it sold them. That means getting your tone right, replying with empathy, and designing journeys that are frictionless but still human.
Psychology is driving the new loyalty
Traditional loyalty programmes—points, discounts, gimmicks—are less effective than they once were. What we see working now is something deeper: relevance, recognition, and relationship. In our experience, women are fiercely loyal to brands that meet their needs consistently, speak their language, and demonstrate that they genuinely care.
Take something as simple as email marketing. If it feels too pushy, too generic, or tone-deaf to a customer’s stage of life, it gets deleted. But when it’s personal, useful, or entertaining? It drives engagement and return visits. According to a 2023 report from Campaign Monitor, emails with personalised subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.
TikTok didn’t just break the internet—it rewired the shopper brain
TikTok has changed the way women discover products. The hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has over 80 billion views globally. What this tells us is that the modern shopper is curious, community-led, and driven by social proof. Psychology again: we are wired to trust people who look and sound like us, far more than a glossy advert or brand message.
For e-commerce brands, this means thinking like creators, not just sellers. It’s about showing the product in a real home, being used by a real person, solving a real problem. Women don’t just want to be marketed to, they want to feel part of a conversation, a discovery, a shared moment.
Convenience is king, but clarity is queen
Fast delivery and easy returns are table stakes now. What we’ve noticed is that clarity and communication have a huge psychological impact. From clean, honest product descriptions to realistic photos, customers want transparency. They’ll forgive a late delivery far more readily than a misleading claim.
And in a cost-of-living crisis, perceived value matters more than ever. A 2024 KPMG UK Consumer Trends report found that 74% of British consumers are more price sensitive than they were a year ago. That doesn’t mean they always buy the cheapest option, but they do want to feel confident that the product does what it says, lasts longer, or saves them time.
The female filter for innovation
One of the most fascinating shifts we’ve seen is how women are increasingly shaping product trends themselves. From cleaning hacks to smart storage, women on social platforms are sharing life-improving discoveries, and e-commerce brands are watching carefully.
It’s a feedback loop powered by psychology: women find a product that genuinely solves a problem, share it enthusiastically, others try it, and demand grows. That’s how trends like collapsible laundry baskets, silicone sink strainers, or self-cleaning brushes have become bestsellers almost overnight.
What next?
If e-commerce brands want to thrive, they need to go beyond the demographic and into the emotional and psychological landscape of the customer. For women, shopping is often a form of care, of control, of calm. Understand that, and you’re not just selling a product, you’re becoming part of her life.
The future of e-commerce is personal, practical, and powered by psychology. And what women want? It’s not just more stuff. It’s smarter, more thoughtful, and more human ways to shop.
Sources:
- NielsenIQ (2024). Shaping Success: A Deep Dive Into Women’s Impact on the CPG Landscape.
- University of Birmingham (2023). “If women are the driving force behind consumerism, why is retail designed for men?”
- Deloitte (2023). Global Marketing Trends Report.
- Campaign Monitor (2023). Email Marketing Benchmarks.
- KPMG (2024). UK Consumer Trends Report.
About Amy Knight
Amy Knight is the 28-year-old entrepreneur, owner and Director of Must Have Ideas, one of the UK’s fastest growing e-commerce retailer companies.
In 2018 she graduated with a Law degree from the University of Kent, working as a warehouse manager during her studies at Ecoegg, a company making innovative environmentally friendly household, laundry and cleaning products.
On completing her degree, Amy remained at Ecoegg moving into the position of Head of Supply Chain Management where she worked for five months.
It didn’t take long for Amy’s entrepreneurial spirit to take over when she decided to do things her own way within the world of household and cleaning products.
Teaching herself digital marketing and all there is to know about social media, Amy took her first entrepreneurial steps into the realms of e-commerce – selling household goods and cleaning products by setting up Must Have Ideas with her two co-founders Rob Knight and Chris Finch.
From starting the business with an initial investment of £3,000 (£1,000 from each founder), today the business is generating an annual turnover of £65 Million.
- In 2023 Amy was featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for Europe, Retail and e-commerce category.
- In 2024 Must Have Ideas is featured on The Sunday Times Fastest Growing UK Companies List
- In 2024 Amy became an LDC Top 50 Leader – supported by The Times
- The Must Have Ideas TV Shopping Channel was launched in August 2024
Amy lives in Maidstone, with her husband Rob and her two young children.
About Must Have Ideas
Founded in 2018 by husband-and-wife team Amy and Rob Knight, and their friend Chris Finch, Must Have Ideas has quickly become one of the UK’s fastest growing e-commerce businesses.
Having worked together previously, the three founders each bring very different skill sets to the business which has made for a successful leadership team.
Mum of two Amy, graduated with a Law degree but after deciding that business and marketing were her real passions, she quickly taught herself digital marketing.
Before co-founding Must Have Ideas, Rob created Ecoegg, an eco-friendly FMCG cleaning products business, now seen on the shelves of major supermarkets.
Chris brings a wealth of expertise in both business management and video commerce which has been a key route to market for the business.
Specialising in unique, problem-solving solutions, Must Have Ideas has grown rapidly – from packing orders on their dining table and storing stock in the spare room, they now employ a team of 135 people dispatching 7,000 orders a day from their state-of-the-art 40,000 sq ft. distribution centre in Kent.
With a passion for delivering a best-in-class customer experience and a relentless focus on data, specialist digital marketing strategies and advanced, custom-built technology, Must Have Ideas continues to grow rapidly with sales set to hit £65M in 2024.
Must Have Ideas is rated ‘Excellent’ from 108,496 reviews on Trustpilot
As a family-run business, its mantra is: to treat every single customer as we would want to be treated andthree key promises of:
- Quick delivery
- 100-day money back guarantee
- and an easy returns process
Amy puts the success of the business down to, using data differently and says it’s “All about the marketing, keeping it simple and getting the product in front of the right people.”
The future of the company looks extremely bright with the intention of bringing in a second tier of management as part of a recruitment process that shows no sign of slowing, plus some ambitious plans to be implemented over the next five years.
LinkedIn | Must Have Ideas website | Instagram – @musthaveideasuk
