- Teens’ top brands for cosmetics, apparel, footwear and restaurants have remained the identical, while there was some volatility amid lower ranked brands, based on Piper Sandler’s forty sixth semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens report.
- E.l.f. Beauty stays the top cosmetics brand, jumping 13 points YoY to 29% for ladies consumers. Nike stays the top brand for each apparel and footwear and Chick-fil-A stays the top-ranked restaurant amongst this age group. Meanwhile, New Balance surpassed Vans because the fourth favorite footwear band, while Sephora passed Ulta for the top beauty shopping destination.
- Teen self-reported spending decreased 1% year-over-year to $2,316, the primary time a decrease has been observed since before the pandemic. Average spending by male teens is up 11% YoY, but spending by women is down 8% YoY.
As the spending power of Gen Z continues to grow, understanding where and the way they spend their money is of paramount importance to marketers. Piper Sandler’s semi-annual survey evaluated top brands for this cohort, together with changes in spending habits. While spending amongst men is up and spending by women is falling, several brands have been capable of carve out a loyal place amongst consumers, with E.l.f. making significant gains.
The survey also measured how teens spend their time on mobile and digital channels. TikTok improved 80 bps versus spring 2023 and remained the favourite social platform of teens (38%) followed by Snap (28%) and Instagram (23%). YouTube (29.1%) gained 100 bps versus spring 2023 while Netflix (28.7%) lost 220 bps over the identical period when measuring how teens spend their each day video consumption. Meanwhile, Spotify made small gains in usage (70% up from 68%) and subscribe/pay rates (46% up from 44%).
Since the autumn of last yr, Gen Z consumers have began to point out a preference for off-price and online-only retailers, up 545 bps/YoY and 121 bps/YoY, respectively. Discount retailers saw the biggest decrease YoY, falling 440 bps. Over half of respondents (55%) said Amazon was their favorite e-commerce site, followed by Shein, Nike, Goat and Temu.
Despite the decrease in spending by female consumers, the “core beauty wallet,” consisting of cosmetics, skincare and fragrance, was up 23% YoY to $324. Cosmetics made up the best percentage of beauty spend at $127, the best level since 2019. Sephora passed Ulta as the popular beauty shopping destination. Additionally, Sephora had a loyalty membership at 67%, higher than Ulta’s at 60%. In footwear, New Balance gained about 200 bps of mindshare YoY while Vans lost about 350 bps of mindshare YoY, while On Running and Hoka One One overindex as preferred athletic footwear brands for upper income teens.
The spending slowdown could also be spurred by growing economic woes amongst this age group, with inflation becoming a top-of-mind issue for a lot of young consumers, based on Piper Sandler.
“Our survey points to initial signs of a slowdown in teen spending. Inflation reached its highest mindshare by way of political and social issues, right behind the environment,” said Edward Yruma, senior research analyst at Piper Sandler, in a press release.
The survey was conducted between Sept. 4 and Sept. 27 and includes responses by 9,193 U.S.-based teenagers.
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