Profit from Resurgent Teen Market

A feature article in yesterday’s LA Times analyzes how retail sales to U.S. teenagers are blossoming. Estimates say these teens are spending 5% to 8% more this year than last, and the growth is evidenced in product categories ranging from clothing to footwear to video games to sports equipment.
     Compared to adults, teens have a number of advantages as a target market:

• Typically, their housing, food, and medical expenses are covered, so they’ve more discretion in spending what money they have.
• Historically, parents will trim their own expenditures before cutting back on what’s spent on their children. So as the economy recovers, growth in teen spending should be faster than growth in parent spending.
• Teens have somewhat greater tribe mentalities and greater use of social media. They’re highly concerned with what their peers think of them, but at the same time, want to have a distinctive group of peers with whom they’re in constant contact. Buying merchandise and then spreading the word on the Internet come naturally.

     Anything happening in American retailing influences what happens elsewhere. There are many similarities among teens worldwide, but in selling to a resurgent teen market, also be aware of the differences. Danish researchers at Syddansk Universitet and University of Southern Denmark, after studying teen consumers in 44 countries, described six market segments:

• Thrills and chills. Having fun and spending freely.
• Quiet achievers. Courting approval from adults.
• Bootstrappers. Rehearsing for their future as adults.
• Upholders. Supporting traditional cultural values.
• World savers. Wanting to share what they have with others.
• Resigned. Limiting their expectations from products they buy.

     Wherever you do business, your teenage retail customers are likely to be a mix of the six segments, but also to have prime desires you can profit from satisfying.