For brands and marketers, understanding how consumers decide which products to purchase is key to making informed decisions across the organization. A recent report on eMarketer provides great insight into how purchasing decisions are made for tweens, teens, and their parents with regards to computer electronics products.
With more and more kids having ‘their own’ money to spend on whatever they please, it’s changed the way that the younger demographic shops including an increase in comparison shopping, but there are still very different factors that impact each segments decision-making process.
How ‘Tweens’ decide (8 – 12 year olds)
According to eMarketer, when asked which sources were used in making a purchasing decision, tweens are much more likely to pay attention to online ads and reference them in their decision-making process (42%) than any other group. Surprisingly, there was also a high emphasis on word-of-mouth amongst friends (34%) and a lower emphasis on price (23%). Unlike other segments, tweens did NOT often turn to official websites (17%) or product reviews (only 10%) to help in the decision making process.
Teens and making purchases (13 – 17)
In general, teens are much more deliberate when making a purchasing decision than tweens, as to be expected. Teens are really compelled by factors such as price (67%), hands-on evaluation (55%), and the opinions of others including word-of-mouth (40%) and online reviews (40%).
How parents decide
For parents, the sources used are somewhat similar to teens, but more of an emphasis is placed on authoritative data. The most important factor for parents is price (72%), followed by product review sites (53%), and product websites (51%). Also of importance is the fact that only 8% of tween parents and 18% of teen parents cited asking their kids opinion on making purchases.
Want to see all the stats? Head over to eMarketer and check it out.
