I was struck by the news that Target’s limited edition Lily Pulitzer collection sold out within hours, after Target took its website off-line in the face of extraordinary demand when the collection went on sale. It is surprising that a sophisticated retailer and a well-known fashion brand did not expect either the demand or that it would manifest itself in a stampede to Target’s website. Can it be that fashion brands and retailers do not appreciate the fundamental shift in consumer behavior of which this is merely the latest manifestation?
As the mother of a daughter who is what the media has taken to calling a millennial, I have had a highly personal view of the change in what was once a fundamental consumer activity: shopping. For me, shopping, which includes searching for luxury brands at bargain prices, is a treasured leisure time activity. It was an activity I used to share with my daughter. The siren call of the mall in Florida, California or wherever else I might be where there was a mall was an essential not-to-be-missed feature of any vacation. And in Manhattan, which has no malls, a stroll on Fifth Avenue or Madison Avenue was a wonderful activity on a nice day.
That stopped when my daughter became a teenager. The one and only shopping trip we have taken in the last 5 years was to find a gown for the prom. That’s not to say that my daughter is not obsessed with fashion or is not an inveterate shopper. She spends more time shopping than I ever did. But the only stores she visits in person are Sephora, to play with cosmetics, the Apple store, to play with gadgets, and thrift shops and vintage stores to find that perfect ugly Christmas sweater or 60’s bargain accessory.
Instead, she shops on-line at all hours of the day and nigh
t, particularly when she is procrastinating to avoid writing papers or completing other school assignments. She shops on her iphone, on her iPad and on her Macbook. She orders everything she is interested in on-line, preferring to try things on in the comfort of her own room, returning what doesn’t work and keeping what does.
For her, on-line shopping is also a highly social and communal activity. She sends links of potential purchases to friends and solicits their opinions. She takes selfies of herself in garments to poll her friends on what she should keep. She follows the brands she likes on social media so that she knows what’s coming and when the sales start.
None of this is new. It has been going on now for years. It is the reason why malls are dying and why some teen retailers have struggled while others have thrived. It has dramatic implications for fashion brands and retailers and important implications for lawyers who serve them. We all must master the internet, social media and the changes in distribution channels that these portend. So bear in mind all: this is the generation that killed the compact disc and record stores and is well on its way to killing iTunes, even though it consumes more music from all over the world than we ever did. It is killing the book store and books (college texts can be rented, ordered on-line and sometimes consumed electronically), although it actually reads more than we do. You’d better get with the “what I want, when I want it, without getting dressed” generation or you’ll soon be a relic of the past. And message to Target and other retailers: if you frustrate your customers and they see your goods as something unattainably dangled out of their reach, you’ve lost them as customers. Millennials do not take frustration well, and the web offers lots of alternatives that are more accommodating. Like Top Shop!
Credit: Helene M. Freeman
