Merchandising

What do Gen Z shoppers really want?

Mike Roberts, chief creative officer at Green Room Design, a brand and retail consultancy, maps out what Gen Z consumer are all about and the experience design innovations that connect them as humans and individuals.

Photo by istock.com

June 17, 2020 by Mike Roberts — Chief Creative Officer, Green Room Design

Gen Z: a generation who value experience over product. They live in a world where gaming rules and the boundaries are blurred between real and digital lives. Gen Z is the tribe succeeding the millennials and preceding Generation Alpha; the gaming generation representing over 35% of consumers in 2020.

The new blended phygital reality is permeating Gen Z's daily lives, and in-turn elevating the expectation in brand and retail experience; an experience that they still very much desire, but of course, on their terms. Digitization and hyper-reality are big culture drivers for them — especially in the creative sphere, where virtual gigs, artificial intelligence art and digital fashion are becoming increasingly relevant. Augmented reality filters continue to be one of the biggest influences on Instagram and Snapchat that bleed into retail, with Gen Z shaping and sharing their own otherworldly lives.

Beyond this, virtual reality is just as important. The real opportunity is to coax these digital natives into real-world events to capture younger consumer loyalty, but for consumers growing up in a gaming culture, this means they expect everything, including brand and retail experience, to be as active and participatory as standard. So, what are the experience design innovations that connect them as humans and individuals? Here's a look.

1. Fully immersive and sensory retail experiences.
2. Omnichannel on steroids: sentient experiences.
3. Mobiliszing brand loyalists as retail activation partners.
4. Consumer controlled and shoppable content.

Gen Z at a glance

● 32% of the global population was Gen Z 2019.
● 24% make up the global workforce.
● $44B in spending power in the U.S. alone.
● 20% of U.S. 13-17 are more likely to buy in-store.
● 67% of Gen Zers agree being true to their beliefs is what makes a person cool.
● 11 hours on average a week are spent on their smartphone.
● 71% of Gen Zers identify themselves as gamers.

Fully immersive and sensory retail experiences

Using the latest technology, mixed-reality initiatives are being developed that map virtual experiences onto physical spaces to heighten the senses, with the aim of creating deeper emotional engagement; within automotive, think about the ultimate test-drive that might not be possible on solid ground.

Brands are borrowing from the gaming and film world to bring this into real-life, including haptics, sonic and VR to develop traditional or existing in-store spaces and digital experience. AI and bio-smart technology will and should take this to the next level, in terms of individualizing the experience.

Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire with The Void, created a virtual theme park that featured site- and story-specific smells, heat and motion plus fictional virtual characters to intensify the experience. Many were positioned in shopping centers, including two in Westfield locations in London (Stylus).

Omnichannel on steroids: Sentient experiences

Reinventing store design and retail experience, spaces are being developed that are capable of connecting the dots between the location, visitor, service and products inside. A range of concepts are being used from ambient and interactive screens, self-service tools, virtual-trial solutions, IoT and facial recognition, adjusting content in real-time from messaging to pricing and payments to well being — all to enhance consumer experience and deliver return-on-investment.

Japanese beauty brand SK-II used advanced facial recognition to create e-profiles for visitors at the Future X pop-up in Tokyo. Once onboarded, they could unlock personalized content and product recommendations at different in-store zones by looking at cameras which were able to determine the complete state of their skin.

Mobilising brand loyalists as retail partners

Involving your customers in key initiatives is nothing new, but Gen Z are used to building and joining more fragmented and niche community groups, where they know they will be surrounded by people who share their same passions. Brands can therefore embrace and entice these super fans into real-world experiences, building their own aspirational (digital) platforms, bringing them on as partners in retail engagement, with selective membership criteria and substantial engagement rewards.

Adidas lured super fans in New York City to an undisclosed location that threw them into the year 2048 to celebrate 50 years of the 1998 Ozweego shoe. Fans who found a hidden door (a news kiosk) entered a futuristic space, where on entering a code, revealed limited-edition Adidas magazines celebrating the shoe, with golden tickets inside for free Ozweego trainers before the models went on sale to the public.

Consumer controlled and shoppable content

Brands are acknowledging that in a generation that are used to digital and gaming, there is an urge for both control and personalization. Brands are therefore giving consumers the chance to alter their environment like window displays via mobile devices or touchscreen tech. The effect is to create simple and playful, yet effective upgrades in-store, with augmented-reality especially blurring the physical-digital boundaries to add a surreal, yet instantly shoppable layer onto the world, with products and mannequins brought to life. The opportunity is to upgrade virtual trialing tech and make hyper personalized recommendations to increase basket size and conversion.

Japanese fashion retailer Gu has been inviting consumers to create personalized miniature avatars in its Tokyo flagship via a 3D body scan at its Style Creator kiosk. They can use them to try on digital 3D clothing renderings from the kiosk's online library or transfer the avatar to their phones to trial looks on the go by scanning items' barcodes.

There is a cautionary tale in appealing to Gen Z. As a digital-first group, the presumption by many is that this also means technology first. This could not be further from the truth and runs the risk of designing digitally-led solutions that ultimately portray an unauthentic and disconnected representation of your brand.

Despite growing up online, GenZ crave interactive and ''in real life' experiences. The truth is that the gaming generation want technology to enable them to express themselves as individuals and connect with brands and peers through shared values. Therefore, the approach should always be human-centerd design first; technology second.

Mike Roberts is chief creative officer at Green Room Design, a brand and retail consultancy.