![]() ![]() According to McKinsey, by 2021 six in ten Americans under the age of 25 had completed a purchase on a social-media site. Such apps are increasingly adding features that allow users to shop without ever leaving the platform. TikTok’s user-generated videos can propel even tiny brands to speedy viral fame. Instagram, part of Meta’s empire, and TikTok, a Chinese-owned video-sharing app, are where the young look for inspiration, particularly for goods where looks matter such as fashion, beauty and sportswear. Print, billboard or tv advertising has given way to social media. The internet has also changed how the young discover brands (see chart 2). Investors may have fallen out of love with Netflix but Gen Z has not the company remains one of the most popular brands among that age group in America. This has buoyed online-rental sites (like Rent the Runway for fashion) and streaming services. They like subscriptions, often favouring shared access to products rather than outright ownership. These “always-on purchasers”, as McKinsey has christened them, often shun a weekly shop for quicker fixes of everything from fashion to furniture. They are more likely than the rest of the population to use their phones to pay for shopping, says Forrester. A study by Salesforce, a business-software giant, found that Gen- z Americans are the likeliest of all age groups to want their groceries delivered within an hour. The light-speed online world also appears to have lowered tolerances for long delivery times. Young people want their shopping to be totally hiccup-free. A heightened expectation of convenience comes with being raised in the age of Airbnb, Amazon and Uber. More than two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-old Americans spend four hours or more on their devices each day. Young shoppers never knew a world without smartphones. The proliferation of social media means there are many new ways of attracting consumers’ eyeballs. In many ways youngsters’ shopping habits, like their lives, are defined by the “attention economy”-buying stuff online is far quicker and easier than a trip to the shops. Megan Scott, a 20-year-old student from London, speaks for many of her peers by admitting that, when shopping, she has no restraint-until, she chuckles, the bill arrives. Forrester, a market-research firm, found that most users of “buy now, pay later” apps are around 20. According to another survey by McKinsey in October, 45% of Europeans in their teens and early 20s planned some kind of splurge in the next three months whereas 83% of Boomers, born before 1964, said “No” to such profligacy. Easy access to means of spreading payments may encourage splashing out (see chart 1). ![]()
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