Millennial-Driven Changes To Retail Technology

By Joshua Stanphill, Business Development Manager, Epson. Inc.

Millennials (the generation born roughly between 1980 and 2000) are emerging as a retail juggernaut. According to data from Accenture, there are around 80 million Millennials in the U.S., and they spend $600 billion annually. By 2020, the firm expects their spending to grow to 1.4 trillion and make up as much as 30 percent of total retail sales.

That’s a huge opportunity for merchants, and one that won’t be limited to just e-commerce sites that they can buy from on their omnipresent smartphones. A CouponFollow report found that the majority of them make most of their purchases offline, meaning that for creative brick-and-mortar retailers hoping to win back market share, this new generation of shoppers could be a potential goldmine.

But that’s only if retailers can meet Millennials’ rising expectations when it comes to corporate values, experience, and the seamless integration of their in-person and online shopping.

Millennials do use mobile devices and the internet for purchasing in a way that is different than any previous generation (and in fact is affecting how those older generations shop as well), but retailers that want to cater to this particular demographic have to do more than just make products available on a mobile-optimized website.