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The media and consumer research groups have been keeping the Millennials in spotlight for many years now; perhaps it is time to turn some of the attention on Gen Z, which began its foray into mainstream consumption. This exploratory study examines the shopping orientation of Gen Z online shoppers using the generational cohort theory (GCT) as a framework and provides insights to e-retailers to understand how this generation approaches the online shopping. The penetration of Internet and accelerated growth of online shopping have enthused the e-retailers to offer a wide range of goods at greater efficiency than the traditional players. By cluster analysis (K-means) of nine online shopping orientation factors (two were eliminated prior due to low factor loading scores), four segments were identified: (a) ‘Economic-quality seekers’, (b) ‘Convenience shoppers’, (c) ‘Deal hunting-convenience seekers’ and (d) ‘Brand and quality conscious shoppers’, and the study profiled each segment based on the demographic data through chi-square analysis. Finally, implications for online retailers and marketing practitioners are enumerated towards the end of the article.

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PurposeYoung consumers are recognized as an important and lucrative segment for the businesses across the globe. While initial steps have been taken to understand them, majority of the existing works consider both Millennials and Generation Z as a single and homogeneous market segment. The purpose of this study is to explore the consumer decision-making styles which are prevalent among Indian Millennials and Generation Z e-shoppers, and how significantly they differ from one another on each of those decision-making attributes.Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory study used the generational cohort theory (GCT) as a framework. The psychographic statements (Questionnaire items) employed were adopted from several past researches on store orientation and catalog orientation, and they were rephrased to suit to the context of Indian online shopping. The principal components factor analysis with promax rotation has been used to unearth the underlying decision-styles among 503 survey participants. Subsequently, the ANOVA model was run to examine the mean differences between the cohorts.FindingsThe factor analysis has revealed that frugality (Price), convenience (Home) and social desirableness are the most dominant shopping orientations (decision-styles) that prevail among Indian (Millennials and Generation Z) online shoppers though in varying degrees. The probing of ANOVA results suggested that, though both the cohorts favor e-shopping, Generation Z are more enthusiastic about online shopping than their Millennial counterparts do.Practical implicationsThough Generation Z and Millennials share few characteristics between them, they exhibit different consumer behaviors. Marketers need to customize their value offerings and marketing communications that resonate well with each generational cohort.Originality/valueAlmost all the existing research works that have been conducted so far on generational cohorts are from Western and European countries and one could confidently say that those findings cannot be applied for the developing nations such as India which is a complex and diverse country in terms of its language, custom, religion and practices with troublesome pasts. Moreover, this is the first empirical work to be conducted to unearth the generational differences that exist between Generation Z and Millennials to the best of authors' knowledge.

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