Boomers up Their Online Shopping, Millennials Steady

Although online shopping has leveled off overall, the boomer generation has increased their online purchases – up 4.5 percent since 2011 – while millennials’ online purchase behavior has declined 7 percent from that time.

Even though many shoppers indicate that they are shopping about the same amount online as they were three months ago, there are some interesting shifts in purchase categories, according to the latest issue of “The Checkout,” an ongoing shopper behavior study conducted by The Integer Group and M/A/R/C Research.

Since January 2012, online purchases of health and beauty products have increased significantly among shoppers aged 50 to 64, growing nearly 12 percent. The percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds who say they've purchased any products online, even once, has dropped in all categories except books, music and tickets. Overall, none of these categories saw major growth from 2011 to 2012.

"Millennials may be feeling the pinch of a still-slow economy and making the decision to watch spending more closely,” said Craig Elston, SVP, Insight & Strategy at The Integer Group. “It could also be that we are starting to reach a plateau in online-shopping adoption.”

Data for “The Checkout” is compiled from a national survey that details consumers’ shopping attitudes, shopping behaviors and economic outlook.
 

X
This ad will auto-close in 10 seconds