In what might be viewed as mildly surprising news, it would appear that online shopping is increasingly attracting more women from the Baby Boomer generation, many of whom are fed up with the traditional brick and mortar retail experience when it comes to shopping for clothing, according to the results of a new survey.
The survey was conducted by VibrantNation.com, an online community for women over 50, and looks into the overall clothing shopping habits of female Baby Boomers. The results are certainly encouraging for online retailers, revealing that e-commerce is gaining traction with a very large and powerful purchasing demographic.
Two-thirds of the respondents reported purchasing apparel online and 13 percent of the women surveyed indicated that they now only purchase clothing online, mostly because they do not like the service the receive in traditional stores and often feel ignored in the retail marketplace.
This is particularly interesting because supporters of brick and mortar retail have always maintained that the personal touch and service in physical storefronts gives it a decided advantage over online shopping. It would appear that, at least to this group of women, that is not the case—84 percent reported that sales associates were indifferent, inexperienced or outright rude while 32 percent claimed to find an age bias from younger sales associates who don’t pay enough attention to older shoppers.
“The irony is that these women are highly desirable clothing customers with not only great spending power but time,” said Stephen Reily, Founder and CEO of VibrantNation.com. “As no identifiable fashion retailers are currently making it easy for them to shop in person, 65% are taking their dollars online to avoid the in-person hassle.”
Additional results indicate that many Baby Boomer females are driven to shop for clothing based on how it looks and feels, not so much because of price. They’re rarely motivated by sales or promotions, with only 11 percent of respondents saying they shop during major sales periods. Almost one-fifth of the women reported monthly clothing budgets over $250.
Survey results came from more than 600 smart, successful women aged 50-70 who are VibrantNation.com members, e-newsletter subscribers, Facebook fans, and Twitter followers. Visit VibrantNation.com for more information.
Now a days, Internet has opened up numerous possibilities for business and marketing making shopping more convenient for everyone.Internet marketing offers the shopper the convenience of doing things from the comfort of their homes or offices at any time, day or night.
It’s a lot more comfortable to shop online, sometimes you just don’t want to go inside a store be judged by some 20-something girl..at least on the internet there are great shopping sites now like UbiqueApps’ Shop where you can enter what you want and then come back and ta-da it’s there!
I’m not technically a Boomer (I’m 47), but I can completely relate to the feeling of being ignored in clothing stores by 20-something sales associates. I’ve also noticed that in electronics stores if you don’t walk in with a hubby and a bunch of kids in tow, you are also ignored, which I find odd. I think the electronic sales associate assumes that families with kids are a better target for electronics. But, “hullo!”, those of us without kids have MORE disposable income than younger families.
I, too, have said “Good riddance” to indifferent, arrogant store clerks at brick and mortal retail outlets. I’ll shop the retail outlets to see the functionality of something (such as an iPad or computers), but then I’ll go online where my business is valued to actually buy it. Tired of being ignored in the stores.
I find it is a great way to shop and you don’t have to leave the house. By the time I get around to going to the mall or wherever it is I want to shop, I could have bought it online and had it in my hands!