Baby Boomers Shock the World – Gobble Up Online Deals

This is one of the best bar–or in this era–coffee shop bets this holiday season. Ask your drinking partners what age group buys the most products online. Then watch their jaws drop when you cite this study that shows 65 year olds and up are the largest group of online shoppers.

Seventy-Seven percent of them said they are “most likely” to shop online, and–get this–in the survey this group is called “matures.” Following close behind are Baby Boomers with 71% of them shopping online. The study, called “Life Stages & Life Styles: Turning Generational Differences Into Media Opportunities,” included more than 1,500 consumers across generations conducted by the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing.

The surprise is that “matures” have discretionary income, on average $800 per month, and boomers, despite economic woes, still spend an estimated $2 trillion annually. More of those dollars are going to online purchases.

Get ready Cybershoppers your day is near. These stats blew me away. Remember last year in the teeth of the market crash? Last year online shopping grew, yes GREW from 2007 to 2008, here are the big three days from 2008

Date	2007	2008	% change
November 27 (Thanksgiving Day)	$273	$288	6%
November 28 (Black Friday)	$531	$534	1%
December 1 (Cyber Monday)	$733	$846	15%

Source: comScore

This year the competition for holiday sales is fierce, but there is a bit of energy, this week the Dow hit a 52-week high, and interest rates are at historic lows.

Retailers see a golden opportunity to offer values early in the season. Whether it’s electronics, accessories or appliances
shopping this season may well be fun. Eli Sakkal at Butterfly Photo in New York, one of the largest selection of consumer electronics and appliances online has some great insights, “The market is shifting, there are great deals to be had at both the high end of the product line and the lower end of the line, for both Plasma and LCD High Definition televisions during the next 3
weeks,” said Sakkal. Some of the deals include a Samsung 40” model 40B550 a highly rated model is at $799 at Butterfly Photo and a pre-Black Friday, pre-Cyber-Monday deal of a 50” Samsung Plasma for $1,499.85 These prices were at the time of writing this post and may change.

This holiday is a consumers’ market. Here are a couple of other Manna customers for great holiday deals and high-speed, white-glove delivery.

Electronics Expo

B & H Photo