MILLENNIALS SEEK MORE FROM HOLIDAY SHOPPING
Whether it’s demanding unique gifts or paying heed to charity, Millennials are putting their own distinctive stamp on the holiday retail experience. Young consumers, roughly those below age 35, played a key role in the record-breaking surge that made Black Friday the first day ever to rack up more than $1 billion in mobile sales.
The nation’s 75 million Millennials now outnumber Baby Boomers, with their buying power this holiday season projected to total $85 billion — nearly 10% of the $1 trillion forecast to be spent overall, tracking service Nielsen says.
The 86 million Americans coming up behind them, mostly teenagers or teenyboppers now, will potentially pack an even greater consumer punch.
“Millennials are going to be a driving force in changing holiday shopping,” says Thom Blischok, strategic global retail adviser to Nielsen.
Some retailers are pulling out all the stops to get them in the door. They want shoppers such as Corey Marsh, 26, a food industry product developer and native of New York’s Long Island who likes looking at merchandise and chatting with sales people.
But for him, speed is essential: “I don’t want to be waiting in line for 20 minutes to check out. That’s what will drive me toward online shopping.”
How Millennial shoppers are distinctive:
ENTERTAINMENT-ORIENTED
They want experiences worthy of becoming an Instagram or SnapChat moment. “If I’m not shopping online then I want my in-store experience to be different,” says Sam Black, 25, a community educator for a nonprofit in Baltimore. At Nike Soho in New York, shoppers can put on a pair of basketball sneakers and try them out in a virtual game of hoops at Brooklyn Bridge Park, or don a pair of running shoes to take a virtual jog through Central Park. They can also connect with various apps by tapping on touch-screens.
“We’ve had very strong response from consumers to our immersive digital experiences,” Nike spokesman Brian Strong says.
“Our Nike+ Basketball Trial Zone has been full since we opened, and consumers are sharing their experiences on the court throughout their social networks.”
APPRECIATIVE OF UNIQUENESS
Younger consumers also enjoy giving business to local, independent retailers, and they prefer one-of-a-kind items.
PwC’s holiday report found 43.23% of Millennials and 33.18%
of 17- to 20-year-olds mostly in the following generation are very or extremely likely to purchase handmade items.
That’s compared to 34.73% of Gen Xers and 27.62% of Boomers.
“The only time I will go to a store is if it is supporting a local artist,” Black says.
CHARITIES WIN OUT
An eBay survey found 67% of Millennials feel they’d be more likely to choose a holiday gift from a company that donated proceeds to charity, compared to one that did not.
Target, for instance, is the exclusive seller of “UNICEF Kid Power,” a fitness tracker for children that awards points based on how much they move, that can in turn un- lock food packets for severely malnourished children around the globe.
“Through programs like Kid Power, we’re helping kids to get active while empowering the next generation to get involved in their communities and showing them they can make a difference,” says Laysha Ward, Target’s chief corporate social responsibility
officer.
RESEARCH-FOCUSED
Millennials tend to let their fingers do the shopping, going online to evaluate a product’s quality, compare prices and tick off purchases, particularly on their tablets and smartphones. A Nielsen survey found that by Nov. 23, 70% of shoppers between the ages of 18 and 34 who’d already begun their gift buying purchased something online.
That’s compared to 34% of that age group who shopped in a department store, and 64% overall.
In another change that may dramatically impact the way merchants advertise their wares, social media and word-of-mouth matter much more to Millennials this holiday season than a retailer’s practiced sales pitch.
“Much of the product research Millennials do is through social media,” Bilshok says. “They ask their friends, ‘What do you think of this product?’ That’s a major shift, when product brands are being vetted by social media, not by what’s on the product’s website.”
Sarah Fleisher, a 26-year old publicist from Royersford, Pa., says she depends on her computer.
“I like shopping on my computer, from like my bed, or (from) a store,” Fleisher says.
She estimates about 60% of her purchases will be online and 40% in stores.