Companies that thought they could make hay selling clothing and video games to teens online may want to think about floating them a loan instead, judging from the results of a Harris Interactive YouthPulse survey of 2,148 people 8-21 years old.
And if you want to reach the tween set, you should target your media messages as much to parents as to the youngsters themselves. That’s because slightly more than half of the 12-and-under crowd said that they’d had to abandon a purchase because of parental interference, by far the number-one reason for shopping-cart abandonment among that age group. In comparison, 27% of the older kids said their parents had forced them to abandon an online purchase. The top reasons teens cited for aborting an online sale were an aversion to paying shipping costs (45%) and the age-old teenager’s complaint: They were broke (42%).
Teens and tweens pumped $22 billion into online retailers’ pockets last year, which represented 16% of their total spending, but little of that money came from the preteens, according to Harris. Those kids spent an average of $218 a year, compared with $866 for 13- to 15-year-olds, $682 for 16- and 17-year-olds, and $1,330 for the college-age sample. Harris analysts believe that online spending declines among older high-school students because they enjoy the social aspects of shopping at malls with their friends. That preference ends once they get to college or enter the work force, they added.
But here’s some good news for multichannel merchants: The survey reports that young consumers spend $20 billion a year on shopping sprees that they initially researched online.
What’s a Web merchant to do? Harris analysts suggest it’s a mistake to try to ape the social allure of the food court. Instead, marketers should find their own ways to make shopping online as much fun as boy-watching, girl-chasing, and eating pizza.
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