The Maturing Marketplace: Buying Habits of Baby Boomers and Their Parents

Citation

Knowles, P. (2002), "The Maturing Marketplace: Buying Habits of Baby Boomers and Their Parents", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 362-363. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2002.19.4.362.2

After 20 years of research at Georgia State University’s Center for Mature Consumer Studies, Moschis, Lee, Mathur and Strautman realized that many businesses had a very real need for in‐depth information about mature consumers. Hence, they set out to collect information about the mature consumer that would answer the questions often asked of them by practitioners. The results of their work are presented here in book form. Because this work is, in reality, a research report of two surveys, one will not find a comprehensive bibliography. Also, the surveys fall victim to the usual limitations of cross‐sectional research. However, there are a number of reasons why this book is a necessity. One is that A.C. Nielsen, until very recently, did not collect data on consumers older than age 50. Another is that businesses and nonprofit organizations need accurate information on consumers over age 50. Without such knowledge, practitioners are left to base important business decisions on little more than accepted stereotypes.

The Moschis group sent out two separate research questionnaires to a total of 20,000 people aged 35+ across the US asking about their day‐to‐day concerns, buying habits, and purchasing preferences. The group was interested in buying and consumption behaviors of the “baby boomer” generation as well as older age groups. Questions were focused on health‐care goods and services, insurance, housing, financial services, travel and leisure, pharmaceutical products, high‐tech products and telecommunications services, apparel and footwear, and food and beverages. Details of consumer buying habits that were measured included product ownership and use, motives for buying, influences on purchasing, preferences for different sources of information, reasons for patronage of stores, methods used to purchase and pay for products, and media use profiles for different offers. Finally, the group collected information about demographics and lifestyles. Of the 20,000 surveys sent out, about 3,700 surveys were completed – 18.5 percent. Baby boomers, those respondents aged 35‐54 years of age (numbering almost 1,000 of the surveys returned), were compared to older age groups (aged 55+) and seniors (aged 65+).

The book consists of 11 chapters, beginning with an overview chapter (chapter 1). In this first chapter the authors describe the why and how of the surveys. Also, somewhat inexplicably in an overview, in different sections the authors include a list of 14 comparisons of baby boomers with seniors (e.g. we find out that the location of a pharmacy is more important to baby boomers than it is to seniors); discuss older consumers’ habits when it comes to such things as their preferences for health‐care goods and services; explain the buying habits of upscale relative to lower‐income older adults (e.g. upscale older consumers are more concerned with locating in a retirement community near their friends) and discuss mature consumer segments consisting of four groups (e.g. “healthy indulgers”, “healthy hermits”, “ailing outgoers” and “frail recluses”). Finally, in the overview chapter, the authors introduce readers to the format of the remainder of the book.

Chapters 2‐10 present the findings of the authors’ survey. These chapters are must reading for anyone interested in conducting research into mature consumers of products related to food and beverages, food stores, and restaurants (chapter 2), apparel and footwear (chapter 3), pharmaceutical products (chapter 4), housing (chapter 5), technology products and telecommunication services (chapter 6), health‐care (chapter 7), travel and leisure (chapter 8), financial services (chapter 9), and insurance (chapter 10). A final chapter presents a summary and implications for marketing strategy.

At the end we are left with the understanding that, despite the fact that mature consumers are heterogeneous, there are implications that can be drawn from the data. Given the findings presented in this book, marketing practitioners as well as academicians can now have a much better understanding of baby boomers, older consumers, and seniors than before.