By Rieva Lesonsky
If you want to get a grip on the teen market, then you must read the new Piper Jaffray teen survey. The results of the 30th semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey results were just released.
Even if you don’t market to teens, you should pay attention to what they’re up to, since, as Piper Jaffray says, they’re an “influential consumer group.”
Some survey highlights:
- Overall, teens are spending less. However, upper-income teens are spending more on fashion. And denim is “hot” again.
- Spending on accessories, which was a teen staple for years, has seen a 4 percent year-over-year decrease—and fewer teens intend to purchase handbags.
- There’s good news for entrepreneurs in the cosmetics industry: Teens are buying less from the “mega brands” and more from the smaller, independent brands.
Teens seem to be embracing the “shopping small” concept. Upper-income girls are shopping more in smaller, specialty stores instead of department stores. And Vineyard Vines, a preppy clothier still owned by the entrepreneurial brothers who started the company because they hated wearing ties and working for corporations, hit teens’ top 10 preferred clothing brand list for the first time.
Some other teen faves:
- Online shopping: Amazon. Since it’s open to small retailers, consider establishing or upping a presence on the site.
- Social media: Instagram is number one, followed by Twitter and then Snapchat.
- Overall clothing brand: Nike
- Restaurant: Starbucks
- Smartphone: iPhones
Overall, teens spend 22 percent of their money on food and 20 percent on clothes. But when you group clothing, accessories and shoes, fashion tops the list at 38 percent.
There’s so much information packed into this survey, I urge you to take a closer look.
