NRF: How retailers are adjusting to a graying consumer

NEW YORK - Speaking at the Monday morning NRF session “Consumer 2020: What Lies Ahead for the Retail Industry?” several retail executives discussed how they're dealing with a population that is aging – a population that is spending more money on services and less on products.

“We have tried to follow customers into new areas,” said Andrew Higginson, chief executive of retailing services for Tesco, a U.K.-based retailer, which is well known for expanding into services like financial and mobile. “One thing that stood out is how much money people are spending on new technology. So we're trying to build a big network operation in the U.K. It's a question of understanding customers and changing lifestyles, and trying to follow them into those areas so you can provide services as well as the products that they want.”

But Peter Sachse, chief marketing officer of Macy's, said his company is taking a different approach.

“[The graying population] poses a particular problem for Macy's, because we only sell goods and have no services,” he said. “I think it's interesting what Tesco has done with the brand. We work just as hard on the youth part of it, so we know that while we're getting older and will have fewer goods and more services, it is those millennials that we concentrate on. They're going to take us just as far as the baby boomers did, I'm sure.”