Millennial Shopping Habits — a Breakdown for CX Teams

Heading into 2023, the millennial generation’s financial strength is now reaching maturity. While they’ve hit this point later than previous generations, like boomers and Gen X, the next generation of shoppers now spends the most in a single day, averaging about $200. Therefore, brands are looking for ways to appeal to these millennial shopping habits.

Modern ecommerce brands need to fortify their customer experiences in order to respond to what these shoppers are looking for, leaning into their preference for personalization and the channels that they love to use.

What Are the Buying Habits of Millennials?

Millennials have larger yearly expenditures than any generation outside of Gen X, now reaching averages of $69,000 a year. This demographic is also deliberately putting their money behind brands they feel connected to, with 83% spending on companies that align with their values.

The brands that succeed with this generation are those that identify the shopping habits of millennials and play to their expectations, turning this age group into lifelong customers.

Learn from CX visionaries shaping the future of customer service

GLADLY CONNECT LIVE

What Do Millennial Consumers Want?

Millennial consumers want personalized experiences and products that fit into their lifestyles and routines. They also want to communicate through their preferred channels, such as SMS and chat.

Millennial Shopping Habits: How to Attract Millennial Shoppers

1. Millennials seek personalization

According to the 2022 Customer Expectations Report, 66% of all consumers wanted brands to know them and be able to make recommendations based on their preferences. But that number spiked even higher to 81% for millennials. The takeaway here is that millennials are particularly fond of a personalized approach from brands that really understand and accurately interpret their shopping behaviors, predicting their wants before even they know what they are.

Brands need to incorporate a radically personal approach across their customer experiences to respond to these expectations. To do so, they need to use a platform that makes accessing and referring back to shopper information a simplistic process, helping to not only build a consistent profile of each shopper but also make it easier for support agents to develop strong relationships.

2. Millennials prefer SMS and chat channels

For consumers of all ages, channel preference is a big factor. We found that 42% of customers ranked reaching agents on their channel of choice as an important part of the customer experiences.

For millennials, this means investing in text-based communications like SMS and chat, where this demo has a particularly strong preference. Meet them where they are by incorporating a platform with omnichannel capabilities, along with specific features like proactive SMS support to demonstrate the aforementioned personalization on these preferred channels.

PRODUCT

Meet your customers on-the-go with SMS text support

Learn more

3. Millennials welcome product recommendations

During this era of fast-paced, on-the-go shopping, brands need to do everything they can to close sales while catering to buyers’ specific tastes. This strategy is ideal for millennial consumers, who prefer to get product recommendations and suggestions from support agents. In fact, 4 in 10 millennials have purchased items that were recommended by customer service agents in the past.

To do this well, support agents need access to customer profiles stocked with vital data, like past purchases and product preferences. Another critical step? Product training for support agents. Having product knowledge empowers your agents to answer questions quickly and confidently. With access to customer profiles and layered-on product expertise, your support team will be ready to cross-sell and upsell to millennial shoppers–a win-win scenario for both groups.

Why Does Meeting Millennial Expectations Matter?

Investing in ways to attract millennial shoppers isn’t just about bumping short-term sales. Winning the loyalty of young consumers means you’ll have a consistent CX revenue generation stream for years to come.

Millennials are more likely to show their loyalty when they see companies making an effort to support them. Our findings show that 32% of consumers would “fall in love” with a brand from great service, with that number jumping higher with millennials (37%) and the forthcoming Gen Z demo (40%).

Tools That Understand Millennials and Shopping Habits

As the next generation becomes the dominant spenders in the modern economy, a brand’s approach to customer experiences needs to center around the shopping habits of millennials. Gladly is a platform that can meet their expectations and provide the tools for building long-term relationships with this young, high-spending group.

REPORT

2022 Customer Expectations Report

Download now