Piper Jaffray, the American investment bank and institutional securities firm, has released the latest edition of its semi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens” survey, which follows trends in the spending and brand preferences of teenagers. This 38th edition, which surveyed 9,500 teenagers in 42 U.S. states, may be indicative of trends in other parts of the world.
As in other countries, young consumers appear to want to spend less and own less, going for better quality and experience rather than quantity. One big takeaway of the survey is that it shows a drop in teenagers' “self-reported” spending to an eight-year low. It is down by 4 percent year-on-year and by 10 percent from the spring of 2019 to an annual total of $2,400 per teenager, a level not seen since the autumn of 2011.
For the teenage market, apparel and footwear have continued to become more and more casual, with fashion brands such as Sperry, Ralph Lauren and Vineyard Vines losing ground to athletic brands such as Nike and Lululemon. Nike gained market share in both footwear and apparel and is, in fact, the top brand among teenagers in the U.S.
Lululemon, which has a much bigger presence in the U.S. than in Europe, climbed from 11th to seventh place, its highest rank in the survey. Crocs also reached new heights, coming in seventh among the footwear brands. At 27 percent, clothing accounts for a greater “wallet share” for female teenagers than any other item. Male teenagers spend most of their money on food.
Generation Z – comprising people who were born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s, and who have therefore never known a world without the internet and cell phones – accounts for an annual $830 billion in U.S. retail sales. Among these digital natives, Amazon has achieved an absolute dominance. Last spring, its share of the e-commerce market in this demographic bracket stood at 50 percent. It has now added two percentage points. Instagram has topped the list of teenagers' preferred social-media sites for the third time in a row.
