How Do Retailers Make Sure that They Are Reaching the Older Customer - Thesis Example

The layout of products and websites (how are products presented) How easy is it to navigate? Screen Language used Promotional offers Delivery charges and methods Mailing, newsletter (sent according to a previous purchase or not) Help and FAQ area Swot analysis and recommendations III. Conclusion Recommendations One of the major changes of the century is the global aging population. As Richard Watson says in his book Future Files (2008), the aging population is the biggest trend that will shape the next 50 years and that will radically modify the way people consume.

According to the British Parliament website, 10 million people in the UK are over 65 years old.  The latest projections are for 5? million more elderly people in 20 years' time and the number will have nearly doubled to around 19 million by 2050. We can explain the trend by the fact that people are now not only living longer thanks to great progress in medicine but also the aging of the large number of individuals born during the baby boom. Figure 1: Population by age in the UK in 1984, 2009, and 2034 Source: National Statistics Online, 2010 Hence, the 60 plus market represents a great market for retailers who shouldn’t ignore them since they not only have more time to shop than any other age category but they usually have a significant buying power across many product fields.

However they have different needs, including the fact that most of the time, they do not want to go shopping for hours in crowded and gigantic stores or others can’t because they don’t drive (mostly for seniors over 70 years old). As a consequence, the retailers have to find a way to reach these customers by bringing the products to them. Several ways can be used to do so, for example, Internet or catalog shopping. They can also facilitate their shopping experience, for instance by offering to deliver the products that they choose in the shop directly at home for free.

We will study in this report all of these channels focusing on E-Retailing as a way to reach the older customer. Who are these seniors? As Barry Gunter explains in his book Understanding the older customer (1998), when it comes to communication, a major mistake that the retailers need to avoid is stigmatizing the older customer with stereotypes regarding their physical and mental capacities as they could be misunderstood and depreciated. Age is a relative concept; we can’t really define seniors by their age but more by the age felt.

For doctors, people become seniors at the age of 70 years old when specific diseases affect their patients. For the state, the barrier is 60 years old at the time of retirement. But for our study, we will focus on people over 60 years old, the fact that they retire from their careers makes them different consumers from younger age groups who buy differently and have much more free time on their hands. We will limit our study to 80 years old people who are part of the oldest generation who don’t really consume that much, due to their difficulty to move out of the house and the fact that they are in nursery houses.

So how do senior citizens see themselves? At 65, there is a gap of almost 20 years between chronological age and perceived age. This shift in perception is not unique to seniors. According to a study conducted for Lagardere Active Publicité (ND), only 20-34 years old are seeing themselves approximately as they are. From 35 years old, we feel younger, and the gap between real age and perceived age won’t stop increasing.