E-retailers looking for teens focus on hip products and content
By Lauri Giesen
As any parent will attest, teenagers and adults in their early 20s don’t always follow the conventional wisdom set by grown-ups. They have unique interests and often a different way of approaching life. So it only makes sense that online retailers’ approaches to attracting young people and getting them to buy will differ from the approaches they take with other customers.
In terms of online shopping, retailers need to look not just at what products young people want to buy, but also where to find these young people, what features attract them to web sites and what motivates them to make a purchase.
Separate sites
These differences between youth and older adults mean that not only do e-retailers that primarily sell to a young audience—CD stores and hip clothing merchants—need to take a different marketing approach, but often traditional retailers need to examine their strategies as well if they want to sell to the young. That’s why a number of mainstream retail outlets, including Macy’s, Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn, have developed separate web sites for their younger customers. These sites not only sell merchandise specifically targeted to a younger audience, but the sites are designed and marketed specifically for youth. They also often provide additional non-sales-related content, such as fashion tips or celebrity news, that are expected to interest young people and get them to their sites.
For retailers trying to sell to the youth market, the first challenge is finding them. Putting out banner ads and sponsoring promotions at other web sites are only effective if these other sites already attract young people And those looking to the web to find young potential customers should find several categories of sites that fit the bill.
“Usually, social networking and education sites are a good place to start to look for young people,” says Alisa Ostrowski, senior analyst with comScore Networks Inc. Indeed, in a comScore survey of top web sites visited by persons 12 to 22, leading sites included thefacebook.com, quizilla.com, collegeboards.com, quizyourfriends.com and Xanga.com, all social networking sites. The list also included sparknotes.com, an education site.
Ensuring authenticity
But while such socializing sites are good places to find young people, some experts warn that retailers would be best to target social sites specifically for teens rather than general social networking web sites. “Sites like thefacebook.com or the education sites are good because they are known by young people to be safe. With some of the security problems associated with the Internet, teens today like those sites which take precautions to authenticate the identity of the users to make sure the others they are communicating with are who they say they are,” says Matt Britton, executive vice president of marketing for Mr. Youth Consulting, a marketing firm that advises retailers in appealing to persons aged 12 to 24.
Other online spots in which to find teens and young adults include game, music, fashion and sports sites, according to David Card, vice president and senior analyst for New York-based Jupiter Research who helped write a trio of reports that examined the online behavior of teens aged 13 to 17. And in terms of finding other retail sites on which to form partnerships for the purpose of sending visitors to a site, Card recommends hitting the online versions of the stores where teens already hang out at the mall. “Brands that work well in the real world do well online,” Card says. Indeed, some of the more popular retail sites among young people, according to comScore, are Hollisterco.com, owned by Abercrombie & Fitch, and Foot Locker sites.
Still, Card warns retailers against limiting their marketing approach to advertising on online sites. And in fact, Jupiter research shows that teenagers actually are online less than adults. The study found teens spend about 7 hours per week online. “Adults have access to the Internet both at work and at home. While teenagers technically have Internet access at school, it is not the unrestricted access that would benefit most retailers,” Card says. But digging down into the research, Jupiter found that while teens are online less often than adults, they are more frequent users of instant messaging and personal pages and blogging sites than adults. Teens also outpace adults in gaming, music and movie sites, but participate less in other online entertainment categories like sports and TV.
The multi-media approach
But just because teens don’t go online a lot to read about TV doesn’t mean they aren’t watching it. “The reality is that teens still spend more time watching TV than they do going online,” Card adds. Jupiter’s report found that teens spend 10 hours a week watching TV.
Therefore, a retailer looking to advertise to the young adult market would be wise to develop a multi-media campaign that encompasses TV advertising as well as online promotions, Card says. Music and cartoon cable networks as well as regular programming that appeal to youth would be good places to start.
Other findings of the Jupiter report show that teenage girls spend 22% more time online than boys. Teenage boys, however, spend 150% more time playing online games than teenage girls.
With such differences in how young people use the web vs. older adults, it is not surprising that some mainstream retailers have formed separate web sites for young people. Macy’s has created thisit.com (pronounced this is it) while Crate & Barrel has cb2.com and Pottery Barn has pbteen.com.
These youth sites generally do not sell product that cannot also be purchased at the parent sites. But rather they offer a select subsection of products deemed to appeal to youth with a twist on how these products are marketed and displayed. “You can use different navigational methods from our two sites and still get to the same product detail page,” says Kent Anderson, CEO of Macys.com. That explains how a parent shopping at Macys.com might end up purchasing the same sweater as a present that a younger person might buy for herself at thisit.com.
Macy’s youth site has only been in operation since early February. It began as part of test sponsored by Macy’s West operations three years ago when it was a brochureware site intended to get young women to shop at local Macy’s department stores. It was originally aimed only at women aged 15 to 22. “The site was well-received and we got good feedback. So we decided to take the site national and make it transactional,” Anderson says. “We’ll be adding a young men’s wear section in the fall and more content to appeal to the male customer.”
Not only are the graphics and typefaces at thisit.com more contemporary and hip than what you’d find at Macy’s.com, but thisit.com has additional content directed at the youth market. The site has an affiliation with Teen Vogue magazine and provides editorial content about fashion tips and makeovers.
“We think the teen customer is willing to spend more time looking around at our site. At Macy’s.com we are responding to the alpha shopper who wants to get in, find a specific product, buy it and leave,” says Anderson. “Thisit.com has a softer sales approach.” While thisit.com is transactional, it is not as much about selling on the spot as directing customers to shop at Macy’s in general.
Developing marketing
Because thisit.com is so new, Macy’s is still struggling with how to promote it. “We’ve used some banner ads at teen sites and were pleasantly surprised at the results, but we are sill fleshing out our marketing strategy. We’re now looking for new ways to promote this site. We know that the lessons we’ve learned at Macys.com won’t necessarily be transferable to thisit.com,” Anderson says.
Among some early lessons, the youth site is finding that e-mail promotions are effective with the teen market. Macy’s asks teen customers to provide e-mail addresses when they make purchases in the stores and most teens are willing to do so. That allows the retailer to send promotional messages directing the teens to the site. And e-mail isn’t all it’s looking at. “We’re trying to figure out how to take advantage of text messaging and video content to promote our site as well,” Anderson adds.
Macy’s is also looking to see if some type of blogging feature would be effective to allow young women to talk about fashion among themselves. As part of the effort to encourage teen communication, Macy’s is looking at appointing a team of “It” girls who could give fashion advice online. But Andersons says the “It” girls won’t be your typical model-type young women. “We want a cross section of teens represented, including diversity in sizes and shapes. We do a large plus-size business and we need to represent that market,” he explains.
Many observers like the idea of mainstream retailers taking a different approach to the youth market. “This audience is trend-driven and they want a softer sales approach than what their parents are looking for in a retail site,” says Carrie Johnson, analyst with Forrester Research. Besides Macy’s thisit.com, Johnson likes Crate & Barrel’s CB2 site because of the way it has compiled “hip products” that are likely to appeal to college students looking to decorate their dorm rooms and other young persons who are furnishing their first homes.
Simplicity is key
But while hip is good in selling to youth, so is simplicity, according to consultant Britton. “Sites have to be kept simple and devoid of clutter,” Britton says. “Teens have a short attention span and they want instant gratification. If they have to spend too much time at your site to get what they want, they’ll go elsewhere.”
For example, while Britton likes the idea of Macy’s setting up a separate page to appeal to youth, he is critical of the site itself in that he says thisit.com’s load times are too long and the design is cluttered.
While Britton says additional content can be helpful in attracting youth, too many added features can take away from the main purpose of selling product. “Cool games and content are okay, but only if they tie in with your brand or the products you’re trying to sell,” Britton says.
Still, comScore’s study of top retail sites showed the top sites typically offer promotional enticements, such as contests and giveaways, as well as provide chat rooms and other communication tools to encourage teen consumers to “make the brand a part of their everyday life,” according to Ostrowski.
Individualized sites
One good feature on youth sites is giving customers the ability to customize the web page, Britton adds. “Young people like to express themselves as individuals and they expect to do that when they go to a web site,” Britton says. And while retailers don’t want to overdo the advice, features that allow young customers to share their thoughts about the products being sold with others of similar age and interest are often effective, Britton says.
While selling is still the name of the game, experts warn that retailers need to be realistic about selling a lot of product directly off these web sites. Jupiter’s Card warns that particularly when selling to persons under 18, retailers’ sites might do better to promote their products that teens can buy in the retailers’ stores than try to get a lot of online sales. “Adults tend to shop online because they have time restraints. That is not a problem for teens,” he says. “Their issue is more cash restraints than time restraints. And it is harder for teens to buy online because they don’t usually have access to credit cards.”
Finally, Card adds, unlike many older adults who view the experience as a required necessity, teens actually like to shop in malls. “Retailers might be better to use the web to promote their products and try to get teens to remember their products the next time the teens hit the mall,” Card says.
But whether it is promoting store merchandise or selling directly online, most retailers going after the youth market realize that their offerings often need to be unique from what is directed to the older audience. Young people typically like offerings that are contemporary, provide them with useful or fun content and reflect that the retailer knows who it is trying to appeal to. l
Lauri Giesen is a Libertyville, Ill.-based freelance business writer.
