As we know, digital behavior regularly changes over time. Here, we look at today’s digital activity by generation.
Before you begin, look at these related posts:
- Social Media Habits by Generation
- Employee Motivation by Generation
- Millennials Are Shaping Online Spending
- Millennials, Generation Z Greatly Differ
- What Generation Has the Best Future in Entrepreneurship?
A Comparison: Digital Activity by Generation
Despite some stereotype assumptions, “Baby boomers are not indifferent to the benefits of digital shopping. However, their reluctance to use smartphones for any and everything limits the digital proportion of their overall shopping. Besides their worry about digital privacy. Repeating the pattern evident in other forms of digital usage, we peg a majority (59.0%) of boomers as digital buyers. However, a smaller majority than among younger consumers.”
“In an August 2019 eMarketer poll conducted by Bizrate Insights, fewer than half of 55- to 65-year-olds said they used a mobile retail app in the past month to research a possible purchase. Smaller numbers used mobile apps to transact purchases.”
Furthermore, “digital coupons have won a following among boomers. In Q1 2019 polling by IRI, half of boomers (and six in 10 millennials) downloaded coupons from retailer and manufacturer Web sites. There’s even some willingness to do so via phone. In May 2019 polling by Fluent, 29% of 55- to 64-year-olds said they prefer to redeem coupons and rebates through their phones. Indeed, this nearly matched the 31% who preferred printouts.”
Each generation has it own way of using social media to their advantages, Since baby boomers just had the first touch in the new age of internet, they’re more prone to use social media. Millennials and Gen Z are grew up in the age where the internet has become a staple part of their life. Therefore marketers need to carefully study the data and use it for various price distribution, Especially to baby boomers who seem to prefer shopping still thought phone rather than buying products from the internet.
I was shocked to see that majority of baby boomers (59%) are digital buyers. Gen X and Millennials grew up with the evolving technology, so it is second nature to them, therefore I am not surprised they are above 70%. The activity that was most diverse between ages was “used a mobile wallet app to buy a product or service”. My generation mostly pays with card or mobile wallet apps, but baby boomers and even Gen X are not as used to it yet. I do think that throughout time those numbers will go up for these markets.
Not so surprise for those poll results, the really attracted thing in this poll is: seems females are more depended on app lifestyle than male, even though the gap is not so sharp and obvious. Seems that business leaders and managers should spend most of their mind and time to study and research female online consume behaviors. Making some female special offers maybe good to their business, not only in traditional female consume field like beauty, but also being recognized as male part like vehicle markets.