Why Gen Y won’t buy what you’re selling | Hacker News Reader

Why Gen Y won’t buy what you’re selling

xyzuniversity.com

5 pointsnvr2196 comments

Maybe Gen Y are not the best consumers right now because they are over their head in student debt and the economy sucks :(

Exactly, gen Y isn't choosing not to buy cars primarily out of concern for the environment, it's that cars are expensive to buy, expensive to maintain, and expensive to run.

As a gen Y person myself, I've also noticed that a lot of things I might potentially afford that are marketed toward me aren't worth buying. In my opinion, all three current gen game consoles have great technology and terrible games. Why buy fashionable clothes, the clothing I have works just as well, and doesn't cost hundreds of dollars? A new car? Why take out a loan on a car whose value goes drastically down the moment I sign the paperwork?

In an economy where I'm lucky to have a few hundred dollars after I pay my bills and eat for the month, I save most of that for the next time I get sick without health insurance, the computer breaks down, or my car stops running.

These two quotes from the article seem a bit contradictory (italics are mine):

"From cars to association memberships, jewelry, and non-light beer – Gen Y just isn’t buying."

"Old-fashioned marketing won’t reach this generation that spends $200 billion annually."

Hard to spend $200 billion without buying anything.

Plus, not a single citation to back up any of these claims.

Semantically, there isn't really a contradiction. I can spend €9 a month on a subscription to Spotify and in reality I didn't buy anything because no ownership of anything was transferred to me. You can disagree and say that I bought a service, but that is the point of the article -- market your stuff to Generation Y on their "terms".

As a member of the Gen Y, I particularly agree with the following when shopping:

Trust their peers first and their parents second; Hates to be sold anything; Actively researches prices and reads reviews before making a purchase; Expects exceptional service, like Amazon.com which tells them which products they might like; Seeks to do business with ethical, environmental companies; and Values customization, customizing everything from their music to their jeans and soda.

This is exactly what I will do when shopping. However, finding out the root of these above habits can help us find a better solution.

The cause of these so called "Gen Y" behaviour is that everyone who has been exposed to the type of hard-selling and non-ethical advertising, inevitably feel repulsed by the bad ad men as affected by their experience of the past, from time and time again.

But the above actions are not limited to Gen Y, any shoppers who want to shop wisely in today's world will do the same.

I'm part of Gen Y and I just bought a new VW Golf R the other week. I also regularly buy toys, gadgets, etc. for myself or my girlfriend - who is also part of Gen Y. That being said, the first set of 6 bullet points are quite accurate of myself, but not so much my girlfriend.

I'm thinking the author has maybe generalised too much. Never mind that they didn't reference the source(accuracy) of their information.

EDIT: To be clear, by toys I'm talking about pc/console games, books, apps, etc.

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