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Study analyzes how, why teens shop

April 16, 2008

Minneapolis Star Tribune: If parents can hardly predict how their teenagers will behave on a given day, what chance do stuffy stockbrokers have? The odds apparently are pretty good, assuming you ask the right questions at the right time. For the past seven years, retail analysts at Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis have been aiming to do just that.

Twice a year, the investment-banking firm taps into spending preferences of teenagers across the country through a series of surveys and field trips to malls. The idea is to try to identify the companies best poised to grab the hearts and wallets of the coveted youth market, with its hunger for right-now fashions and its big chunk of discretionary income.

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