How Generation Z Is Transforming The Shopping Experience

Millennials are growing up, if not exactly growing old. Although it’s unlikely that publications like The New York Times are done issuing think pieces about the millennial generation, we are in the final season of HBO’s “Girls,” and hoverboards are no longer a favorite after too many literally caught fire (millennials are increasingly trading them in for safe, sensible cars with baby seats in the back, anyway). Retail marketers are responding by turning their attention to Generation Z, the cohort that follows millennials. Figuring this group out is not the smoothest task: Calculating what or who makes up a generation involves arguments about sociology and numbers (it’s an artificial construct, after all), so there’s no strict agreement on who falls in the Gen Z grouping (also known as “post-millennials,” “the iGeneration,” “plurals” or the “Homeland generation,” depending on whom you ask, though “Z” is what’s caught on). But more or less, their birth dates fall somewhere between 1995 and 2014, meaning the oldest members are graduating college and entering their careers, and the youngest are not even yet in kindergarten. And there are a lot of them. Most marketers have heard how huge the millennial generation is — bigger than their parents, the baby boomers — but Gen Z is even larger by most measures, coming in at about 2.6 billion members globally. About 60 million members of Gen Z reside in the U.S., a million more than millennials, according to demographic data firm Social Explorer researcher Susan Weber, and their ranks are diverse: 55% of Generation Z members nationwide are non-Hispanic Caucasians, 24% are Hispanic, 14% are African-American, 4% are Asian, and 4% are multiracial or other, according to marketing consultancy Frank N. Magid Associates. Read more at Retail Dive.