Emerging from my youth – intra-cohort segmentation

Abstract

Purpose Using the millennial cohort the purpose of this paper is to assess differences in shopping mall behaviour between three intra-cohorts groups: adolescents (13–17), emerging adults (18–23) and young adults (24–30+). Design/methodology/approach Using a self-administered questionnaire, respondents were recruited through random customer intercepts at a major shopping mall in a capital city in Australia using a team of trained research assistants. After initial descriptive between group examinations, discriminant analysis was applied to verify group membership. Findings Results show significant differences between groups. Attitudes based upon mall attributes varied significantly, along with expenditure and other behaviour. The study provides evidence of transitional differences within a generational cohort as mall consumers mature. Research limitations/implications It serves as a focus for researchers to more actively consider intra-cohort segmentation relating to other generational cohorts. Practical implications Findings show that emerging adults to be moving away from attending the mall, which means, this group may be lost if retailers are not more proactive in attracting them or at least maintaining them. Coupling this with the group’s transition towards young adulthood, and the fact that these young adults are less likely to go to the mall there is a degree of urgency to develop strategies to keep this transition group engaged if financially feasible. Originality/value This research is important to ongoing theoretical perspectives of cohort theory and life cycle positions through its application to a more nuanced examination of the millennials cohort.

The multi-generation

“…Consumers' selection of a particular channel or multiple channels has been found to be impacted by utilitarian and hedonic aspects of marketing mix elements (Kautish and Sharma, 2018), such as product pricing and assortment, convenienc, and personalization (Pentecost et al, 2019;van der Veen and Ossenbruggen, 2015;Yrj€ ol€ a et al, 2018aYrj€ ol€ a et al, , 2018b. Each of these elements may be either enhanced or limited by a particular channel, as consumers derive different types of 'economic, functional, emotional, and symbolic' benefits (Yrj€ ol€ a et al, 2018a, p. 270).…”

“…The millennial cohort is currently the dominant pool of consumers in the market (Klara, 2019) and is anticipated to spend $1.4 trillion on an annual basis by 2020 (Donnelly and Scaff, 2013). This generation has supplanted the baby boom cohort as the largest consumer group; however, baby boomers still retain the lion's share of personal wealth (Dorie et al, 2017), and millennials are financially burdened due to graduating into a recession, coupled with student loan debt (Akers, 2014), and are at various life stages that impact priorities (Pentecost et al, 2019). Retailers are also still interested in the Generation X cohort, which accounts for over one-third of income in the United States, while only accounting for one-quarter of the population (Martin, 2016).…”

“…Different generations have been found to vary on hedonic and utilitarian shopping motivations and also channel usage (Debevec et al, 2013;Vouchilas and Ulasewicz, 2014;Pentecost et al, 2019). For instance, in a recent study, BCG (2018) found that millennials still like to shop in brick-and-mortar stores, while baby noomers are leading in usage of online solo resources.…”

Millennials' preference of hedonic value over utilitarian value: Evidence from a developing country

“…Since Millennial consumers are quite fascinated toward hedonism during their shopping (Klapilová Krbová, 2016), we believe there should be further research to understand how the hedonic aspect of the consumer value system influence various outcomes such as loyalty. In this connection, Pentecost, Donoghue, and Thaichon (2019) mentioned that researchers need to consider the value system suitable to a particular generation cohort. Besides, to address the demand for multidimensionality aspect of the value constructs as well as to ascertain the comparative strength in explaining the customer loyalty of Millennials, this study also incorporates the functional value aspect.…”

The Influence of Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Value Towards Consumer Behavioral Intention Among Youth Mall Shoppers

“…Relating this finding to the current research, shopping trip is seen by the youth as an opportunity to escape, leisure and enjoy their free time (Calvo-Porral & Lé vy-Mangin, 2019). Furthermore, since all the respondents were students who were just went through a transition from adolescents to independent young adults, they became more financially independent, resulting in higher expenditure capacity and allow larger expenditure to occur compared to when they were just adolescents (Pentecost, Donoghue, & Thaichon, 2019).…”