Like cliques in high school, social media can be fickle. One day, a platform is the place to be, and all the cool kids are hanging out there. The next day, they’ve moved on to somewhere else. One day, the popular kids love all your posts. They comment on them. They share them. The next day, for reasons known only to them (and the algorithms), they stop paying much attention to what you have to say.
Vibrant mature consumers are the top 20% of spenders in the 50-70 age group — it’s also a group that tends to be happier and more active than other mature consumers. Despite their ability to spend, they can be overlooked by retailers, brand marketers and even interior designers because they don’t drive trends and account for a lower percentage of overall consumer spending than younger generations.
I think designers and the broader industry can take lessons from this research to empower people to feel confident as they personalize their spaces. Ideally, people will spend more time creating homes they’ll love and less time worrying about making their space look like everyone else’s. How many gray walls and industrial appliances does the world really need?
Consumers who wanted to shop in-store sometimes and online at other times forced retailers to become omnichannel, offering their wares through brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce sites. But omnichannel is not enough. Consumers increasingly want to shop in the “phygital world,” where technology speeds and improves the in-store browsing and buying experience.
Online shopping and cheaper, faster shipping options have facilitated the rise of DTC brands, and with online shopping continuing to grow, it makes sense that DTC would grow, too.
In a survey conducted by consumer experience and insights firm WD Partners last year, more than 71% of respondents said they shop secondhand at least once a month. Some 11% do so daily. (I’m thinking most of those folks are collectors or resellers themselves; some might be people with shopping addictions.) But another 26% shop secondhand weekly and 33% do so monthly. Their reasons vary: Some like the fun of seeking out “treasures.” Others want to save money and still others like the sustainability of buying used items or, in the parlance of auto dealers, preowned products.
Low is a self-taught interior designer, albeit one who grew up with a mother who is an interior designer and a father who is a general contractor. At one point, Low’s mother asked her to take Sandra Funk’s Interior Design Standard program focused on the business side of design and to implement its templates, processes and recommendations in her mother’s business. “I went through the entire course in one day,” Low recalls, “and by the end of the day, I was like, ‘Oh, this is how you run a business!’”
Wanting to create a store that draws local shoppers back again and again as they refresh their decor or pop in to find a special gift, interior designer Shaolin Low has opened Woven by Shaolin in Kailua, Hawaii.
We’re also seeing a generational shift in how people view shopping and buying. Why is this happening? Because the older generations were accumulators and the younger generations, well, not so much. we have a generation of accumulators shedding their belongings and not restocking. And we have younger generations who are less interested in shopping as sport and more worried about the environmental impact of their purchases. Oh, and they have relatively fewer financial resources than some previous generations at the same point in their lives.
With a passion for history and the stories that objects can tell, Devika Kanadé has…