Help Seniors to Shop Early

Senior citizens—an expanding target market—tend to be more profitable customers when shopping early in the day. One research study supporting this conclusion was based at University of Michigan, Singapore Management University, and Ben-Gurion University. The study participants, who were all at least sixty years old, were better able to analyze selling points in the morning than in the afternoon.
     Other research helps explain why and adds to the case for setting up ways to get the older customers into your aisles in the AM:

• As the eyes age, they require more light. Marketers are wisely moving to the use of bolder colors and more contrast in product packing. But for stores that let daylight enter, the morning brightness can help seniors tell the blues from the greens and the foregrounds from the backgrounds.
• Seniors are a valuable source of advice for retailers. When they complain, it is often with the intent to continue to do business with the store, not to start shopping elsewhere. This is more true than with complaints coming from your younger customers. Seniors are less mobile than younger customers and therefore have more of an investment in continuing to shop at the same stores. And age brings tolerance for imperfection. In any case, you—the retailer—can pick up some good ideas about improving your business from seniors. Morning is better than afternoon both because the seniors are likely to have more energy to talk and because you've more opportunity to listen than during busier afternoon and evening store hours.
• Seniors are more concerned about their physical security than are younger shoppers. They feel more comfortable being out and about earlier in the day than later in the day.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers