A new Jupiter report,
Avoiding Irrelevance Through Constant Customer Analysis, also reveals that the US online shopping population, currently some 66 million users – will double to 132 million over the next five years.
“The next generation of online shoppers will be quite a bit different than the consumers who defined the Internet channel in its early years,” said Ken Cassar, Jupiter senior analyst. “They will be more representative of middle-class America. Retailers who want to appeal to these new shoppers must constantly study the changing composition of their customer base in order to ensure that their merchandise offerings do not become irrelevant to a continually changing population.”
Consumers aged 50 and up (who currently comprise only 16% of the current online shopping population) will make up 30% of new shoppers between 2002 and 2006. The proportion of young adults (ages 19 to 35) will decline as a result. Young adults (including college students) will account for only 19% of new shoppers, compared with the 47% of the online shopping population that they currently represent.
In addition, Jupiter expects the household income of average online shoppers to drop from over $70,000 in 2001 to less than $65,000 by 2006. The decrease will be fuelled by the consistently growing number of middle-income Americans who will begin shopping online (nearly 50% of new online shoppers between 2002 and 2006 will have household incomes of between $30,000 and $75,000).
“With the online shopping population expected to change dramatically, retailers must adopt a proactive merchandising strategy, anticipating changes in their customer base rather than reacting to changes in sales patterns. In order to measure these changes, retailers must track transaction data, survey customers, analyse the evolving customer base and quickly make appropriate changes,” Cassar concluded.
