They’re far more likely to take taxis or rideshares and drop some money gambling or in prediction markets, but they’re also using coupons and heavy users of public transportation. Welcome to the somewhat confounding spending habits of Gen Z shoppers.

As with any generation, stereotyping millions of people based on when they were born can prove to be tricky—but Gen Z is challenging some conventional assumptions about consumer loyalty and retail engagement, according to a new report released Thursday by Attain and Dentsu. While the report found that Gen Z shoppers spend 25% less than other generations—which may not be so surprising, given their life stage—this generation is spreading their more limited funds across 6% more merchants.

Making sense of how (and where) Gen Z spends their money is very important as this generation becomes a more dominant engine of the consumer economy. The study, which combined purchase activity with a survey, found that Gen Z is 25% more likely to value brand names than the price of an item, but they’re 18% less likely to buy from the same brands repeatedly.

Even with more limited funds to spend, Gen Z’ greater appetite for spending money on discretionary purchases and their openness to switching brands means that traditional marketing methods may need to be rethought. 

“Gen Z is showing us why the traditional view of the consumer is no longer enough,” Jeff Zifrony, senior vice president of strategy at Chicago-based Attain, said in a statement .

Source link