Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM MARCH 2017 68 W alk any mall, and you'll notice a sea of young people, looking down at their phones, engrossed in their technology. Millennials, the 18-34 demographic, make up more than a quarter of the U.S. population and the majority of today's workforce. But they aren't like the Baby Boomers, or any other generation for that matter. They grew up in times of recession, entered a struggling job market, and have record amounts of student debt, according to Forbes, and therefore have less to spend. This fact doesn't particularly bode well for retail. According to a survey from Harris Poll and Eventbrite, millennials would rather pay for an experience than spend money on materials goods. Still, that doesn't mean they don't spend at all, and their spending is expected to reach $200 billion this year. The good news for the AV industry is that the millennial generation, Gen Y—the first to have cable TV, Internet, and cell phones—considers technology to be a part of their DNA. So, as a retailer, what can you do to capture some of this valuable millennial spending? For one, you need to offer the products that matter to them, that provide the experience they are looking for. They expect that technology—from smartphones to websites to mobile apps to SaaS apps to actual gear—provide the most usable, self-guided, hiccup-free, efficient user experiences ever created. Manufacturers know this experience is imperative to their bottom line and long-term survival, and therefore there is no a lack of products available that satisfy this requirement at retail. (How to get the millennial into your store and not buying online, where most of their spending takes place, is a subject for another column.) With the ready availability of streaming music, we know that millennials have a penchant for music and audio, which is all about that treasured experience. According to Dealerscope, consumers 34 and under account for a larger share of home audio spending than they did two years ago, which is a dramatic shift in just the last few years. It is a result listening to music on smartphones and needing personal audio—headphones—to do it. The headphone became a status symbol, and the rest was history. But it's not just headphones that Gen Y is into. A whopping 47% of home audio spending is done by this technology-hungry demographic, and that includes items like wireless speaker systems, receivers, turntables, and soundbars, with the later being a primary driver of growth, with millennial spending on these design-friendly speakers up 45% last year according to NPD's Soundbar Ownership and Application Study. Pay special attention to emerging audio categories like smart speakers, which substitute the mobile device as music source with voice-enabled cloud interaction. Recent NPD Checkout Tracking data on early Amazon Echo buyers shows consumers aged 18 to 34 accounted for more than a quarter (27 percent) of sales in the six months ending in April 2016. As far as what happens after the sale, expect social-media-savvy millennials to talk about your brand on social media, so engage in the conversation, make it part of your overall marketing plan, and constantly learn from it. Social media is no longer an area that retailers can afford to neglect as it is one of the primary driver of millennials' online interaction. Dave Workman Consumer Electronic Trends Dave Workman is CEO and President of the ProSource Buying Group. RO MILLENNIALS LOVE AUDIO! Why you need to pay attention to this market's habits and preferences

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