No group of consumers is more powerful than millennials. Their purchasing behavior and buying decisions are mostly affected by social media, quality, and uniqueness.
A report stated that Asia has a massive number of millennials, six times larger than the population of millennials in the US and Europe combined. It is not impossible that the Asian millennials will reshape the global consumer market. Another highlight of the report is that this group of consumer’s trend is shifting toward experience rather than things.
Experience vs Things
Observation has been made that the growing trend among millennials is that they would spend money to enjoy experiences rather than purchasing things instead. Simply putting it, people would rather post a delicious meal on Instagram rather than buying another piece of clothing. This trend creates implications in a lot of different sectors, such as healthcare, leisure, financial services, as well as entertainment.
In China, consumer grows to be more sophisticated. Customers use technology to drive value, select aspirational brands over standardized ones, and compare shops more often using technology nowadays, according to the report.
From a total of 828 million millennials in Asia, 40 percent (330 million people) reside in China as opposed to only 66 million millennials in the US, making the shift forward in e-commerce in China more prevalent due to the great opportunity in the country.
A data by Global Blue shows that millennials from the South East Asia countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam have the highest shopping budget of approximately $5200, followed by millennials of Gulf Countries with shopping budget at $5000, and Russians at $4800.
There are different spending gaps between millennials and the elder generations depending on the origin market. GCC and Russian millennials have major spending gaps compared to the elder generations. Meanwhile for millennials, the gaps between them and the elders are just about the same.
Young people define luxury as a feeling instead of category, meaning that they value experience as mentioned prior.
The shift of mindset causes brands to respond as well and results in changes in the products they release to cater to the needs and wants of millennials. Since the approach to luxury in the dictionary of millennials is more easy going, they tend to mix their luxury labels with niche brands and premium labels. Millennials prefer to reflect their own style than what the major brand offer, thus the increased rejection of head to toe luxury dressing. They will go for a brand that can express their own unique style better.
Thus, the demand for unique products and experience increased, called “drop culture”. Millennials will rave for hyped products and collaborations that are only available for a short amount of time or in a specific location only.
This trend affects product design, services, and stores, pushing brands to improve the quality they offer as well as the sustainability of their products.
Brands need to truly understand their target market, especially millennials’ for their exceptional purchasing power so that they can always move forward with their product and services with the ever-changing trend driven mostly by this unique group of consumer.