Five Things Retailers Need to Know about Boomers

We were recently interviewed for the June cover story for STORES magazine, the trade publication of the National Retail Federation.

You can read the entire article here.

The "five things" are:

1. Boomers have two faces -- that is, there are leading edge and trailing edge Boomers, and because they are at different life stages, they have different needs from retailers. Don't treat them as a single group.
2. Single Income = Multiple Prospects -- fully One-third of Boomers – some 25 million people – head up single-income households. Careful, though: that doesn’t mean there’s only one person in the household, just one less person. More importantly during these difficult economic times, single-income households don't have brand preferences that are as strong as dual-income households. That means retailers trying to gain share from a competitor might be more successful luring uncommitted single-income Boomers. But what retailers out there are marketing to single-income Boomers?
3. Boomers are Zealots About Media -- they consume it all, but do so differently than younger consumers.
4. Grandparent Boomers are Nana from Heaven -- over 37% of Boomers are already grandparents. The average age of a Boomer who is a grandparent is 53. Oprah is 53. We're not talking about Estelle Getty from The Golden Girls. We're talking young, vibrant, active spenders -- especially on their new grandkids. Opportunities abound.
5. Target the Pepsi-Turned-Pepcid Generation -- There is a large underserved "middle market" of Boomers (McKinsey calls them "U-Boomers"). Figure out how to target them and you'll be in business.

Let us know what you think of the article, and tell us about any retailers you've come across that seem to understand the Boomer opportunity.