Millennials seen changing retail landscape, spending pattern

Millennials, those born between 1982 – 2002 make up one-fourth of the planet’s population, which translates into 1.7 billion people and as a consumer group, they are just starting to flex their spending power, which will grow significantly in the coming years, United States of America Census Bureau’s International data show.

While they are years from fully establishing themselves, they are already having a marked impact on the global consumer landscape.

Having grown up amid growing media fragmentation, Millennials are hyper adept at multitasking and are fully immersed in both their digital and physical lives. Notably, findings from more than a dozen Nielsen Global Survey reports from 2013-2016, which polled the attitudes of more than 30,000 online consumers in more than 60 countries, revealed that Millennials are a social, community-driven generation that values the voice of the individual. Over 60 million Nigerians are millennials.

Millennials are also a demanding generation that wants a more balanced, healthy lifestyle, and they want to be more informed about companies, their products and their business practices. They also expect products to do more for them and for their community.

“I look out for three things when I am out to shop, health benefits, environmental impact and price. It is time to start taking these elements seriously, most of my friends and generation are careful about what they put into their mouth as food, smear on their skin as cosmetics and the impact of production processes on the environment” says 30 year-old Lauretta Okon, who works for a multinational company.

Merci Okafor, 29 year-old makeover artists, contends that she prefers brands that recognise her uniqueness and take her needs seriously not just as a transaction. “Companies that go out of their way to pay attention to me and how my life is changing gain my loyalty for life.”

With this changing retail and spending landscape, companies who want to reach the millennials would need to change their marketing strategies and adopt the following tips, experts say.

Personalise the shopping experience. “Millennials like brands who get to know them and give them an opportunity to be part of the experience,” says Tink Taylor, founder of dotMailer in an online study.

This is part of the reason why Coca-Cola’s personalised bottles that bore first names was a quite a success.

Listening and engaging in a two-way dialogue is very important among these consumers. Finding ways to engage millennials in a personalised way can come in many forms, from greeting returning customers by name to offering live chat to personalised email. The key is to build interactions that capture their attention in a human way.

Incorporate and promote user-generated content (UGC). Given millennials’ penchant for posting their opinions publicly, consumer-generated content is increasingly a factor in their decision-making process.  With a growing percentage of shoppers between the ages of 25-34 consumer-generated content is having some influence on their in-store purchase.

In addition, millennials spend nearly five hours per day with consumer-generated content (CGC), there is an incredible opportunity for brands to get in front of this audience. Those who embrace CGC increase the potential to convert millennial consumers.

Create and share videos. Create videos that will move your followers.  Focusing on short, engaging videos has certainly become the norm for millennials with Snapchat and Vimeo leading the way.

Millennials relate to authentic product videos that tell stories of how other shoppers used products in real life. Millennials are 1.5 times more likely to watch videos while shopping online before they decide if a product is a good buy and about a third buys products directly as a result of watching product videos.

Millennials are also more interested in consumer-made how-to, unboxing and haul videos than overly stylised brand videos. So be proactive and add this content to your product detail pages to inspire purchases and make the experience more realistic.

Leverage social media. Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, this is where millennials are spending their time. So it’s important to create relevant content in those spaces, content that provides value to that audience, with subtle calls to action.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU