The emergence of Gen Z consumers offer multiple marketing and business opportunities to retailers. It's about time they grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

1. The Generation-Z Consumers in Retail
The aspect of marketing is a challenging proposition for brands and retailers today. With evolving
market scenarios and the emergence of new customer groups, the challenge has certainly intensified
over the years. Recently, millennials have hogged all the limelight, but now it's time to focus on
Generation Z.
Customers who fall under Gen-Z belong to the age group of 13-21 and can be considered to be as
distinct as any other consumer group. Gen-Z have a spending power of US $44 billion dollars in the
US alone (IBM). They are also forecasted to account for 33% of the total global population by
2020, according to projections by (Fun Global Retail & Tech). It won't exactly be the wisest choice
for brands and retailers to ignore them.
Generation Z – Unique in unexpected ways
The Gen Z consumer group has its' unique characteristics, and few of them are quite surprising and
unexpected in nature. Here is a look at a few statistics that are bound to raise an eyebrow or two.
• Despite of 74% of Gen Z category spending their free time online, 98% still shop in store.
(IBM Customer Experience Index Study, 2017)
• The study also depicts that GenZ consumers influence 93% of household purchases and

2. 62% of Gen Z consumers will not use websites and apps that are difficult to navigate.
• According to a survey conducted by HRC over 3,100 participants in the US and Canada,
72% of Gen Z respondents visit a shopping mall once a month for an hour at least, visiting
4.4 stores on the trip. 60% of these consumers go to the mall with a clear intention to
purchase.
• The HRC survey also portrayed that 54% of the respondents preferred YouTube over
Facebook, unlike Millennials.
The above numbers should encourage retailers to better attend to Gen-Z, especially the brick-and-
mortar retailers. In this age of increasing e-commerce, this is their turn to pounce on the opportunity
at hand and make a real difference.
Brands still ignorant of the massive Opportunity
Studies show that brands have still not hit their strides when it comes to marketing and attending to
Gen-Z consumers. According to the IBM customer experience Index, 84% retailers does not offer
any in-store mobile services. Customer loyalty in retail will be tough to achieve with the
prevalence of limited in store mobile marketing. Apart from this, only 19% retailers provide a
highly personalized digital shopping experience. Now the obvious question is, 'if retailers can't
merely engage customers online, how will they cater to their in-store personalization needs?'.
These numbers clearly denote that brands and retailers are still ignorant of the Gen Z opportunity.
Brands need to anticipate their demands better in order to stay one step ahead of meeting Gen Z
expectations. According to IBM's Harriet Green, brands and retailers need to understand that the
Gen Z consumers value:
• personalized interaction
• quality over price
• brand engagement across various channels.
A Deeper Insight on Gen Z consumers
The young age of the Gen Z members cannot be taken into consideration as they already wield
tremendous economic power. Not only are they not shy of personal spending, but as mentioned
before, they have a huge influence on household purchases as well. They also strongly influence
family spending across various categories. The following illustration certainly depicts the same.

3. Brands and Retailers need to decode the needs and preferences of the Gen Z members. Only then
will they be in any position to meet their expectations. The following statistics surely provide
enough insight about Gen Z members. According to a study conducted by IBM Institute for
Business Value:
• 65% of Gen Z consumers expect real value for money with discounts and reward
programmes
• 66% expect that very few products will be out of stock
• brands providing high quality products matters to 66% of them
• 46% of them refer to recommendations made by friends while choosing a brand
• 56% want a fun in-store experience so that they don't get bored
• 45% opt for brands that are socially responsible and Eco friendly in nature.
Read morefor Updated Information on Retail Analytics, IoT, Big Data, Customer
Analytics, Brand Management, and Proximity Marketing Solutions.
at Tickto Blog – http://tickto.com/blogs/
Follow us:
http://facebook.com/ticktoinc | https://twitter.com/tickto | https://www.linkedin.com/company/tickto