Your shopping cart reveals your age
Shishas at 20, pregnancy tests at 30, first-day-of-school gift bags at 40, reading glasses at 50. An analysis conducted by Galaxus and Digitec demonstrates how the contents of customers’ online shopping carts reveal their age.
Imagine if, on any given day, you could rummage through every single parcel dispatched from the Digitec Galaxus loading dock. You’d see the usual suspects – USB cables, printer cartridges, batteries – over and over again. But as you continued to dig through the pile, you’d occasionally come up with a shisha, a disposable camera or a walking stick. In doing so, you’d also manage to predict the age of the customer who ordered it.
Certain product categories on Galaxus and Digitec are dominated by entire age groups. Although customers aged 18 to 24 account for 1.5 out of every 100 sales at the online retailer, they buy three out of every ten shishas, as well as a quarter of all blunt wraps and car subwoofers. The same age bracket makes up a fifth of sales of DJ controllers, gaming headsets, keycaps, modding lights and CPU coolers. In a nutshell, the twenty-somethings enjoy smoking, modding their gadgets, making music and upgrading their computers. Under 18s, on the other hand, are notably keen on comics, records, boxing gloves, motorbike radios and budget-friendly mobile plans.
Customers aged 25 to 34 seem to be concerned with two main things. The first? Wedding photos. At least, that’s one of the obvious guesses. In fact, six out of ten disposable and film cameras are sold to this age group. The second? Starting a family. More than half of all pregnancy tests, baby slings, bedside cots and breast pumps are purchased by shoppers in their thirties.
Ten years later, those same babies are schoolchildren. So it figures that people in the 35–44 age bracket buy two thirds of all child’s bike seat accessories, as well as six out of ten school-starter gift bags, floorball sticks and water balloons. The same age group makes up 60 per cent of chalk, children’s headphones and water slide sales. At this age, life is shaped more by the needs of others than at any other time.
A different picture emerges when you look at the 45-to- 54-year-olds – a rather fuzzy picture, that is. Four out of every ten pairs of reading glasses purchased on Galaxus stem from this age group. Customers in this age bracket also buy plenty of sports gear for the whole family, including ping-pong tables, handballs, tennis shoes and hoverboards. In addition, they account for one third of power generator sales.
People aged 55 to 64 buy an above-average number of reading glasses, TV receivers, satellite dishes and navigation devices – all of which Gen Z would probably call «old tech». Meanwhile, the over-65s are more concerned with everyday needs: they buy 40 per cent of hearing aid equipment, one third of incontinence products and a significant number of grab bars for bathtubs. In addition, they make up about a quarter of sales of model electric railways.
So which age groups contribute the most to keeping Digitec Galaxus afloat? Customers aged 35 to 44 account for the largest proportion of sales (just over a third), followed by the 45–54 age bracket, who account for one quarter. The 25–34 age group comes in third place, making up just under a fifth of sales. Similarly, the over-55s account for around a fifth of total sales.
When all customers under 25 are combined, they make up just 1.5 per cent of sales. Meanwhile, the under-18s alone account for a mere 0.3 per cent. This is probably because young people usually still live at home, share their parents’ bank account and lack the income and savings needed for larger online purchases. Customers in the oldest age group, on the other hand, tend to buy many things in brick-and-mortar stores rather than online out of habit.
The top-selling products on Galaxus and Digitec aren’t as impacted by customer age as you might think. USB cables are among the top-ten purchases for all seven age groups, with printer ink, video cables, mobile phone cases and headphones making an appearance in six age groups’ bestseller lists. The most revealing section of the best-selling products list, however, is the top spot. While keyboards are the most popular product among under 18s, headphones take the lead among the 18–34s. Diapers dominate in the 35–44 age bracket, while Lego takes the top spot among customers aged 45 to 54. Printer ink is the favourite among the over-55s.
At Digitec and Galaxus, I’m in charge of communication with journalists and bloggers. Good stories are my passion – I am always up to date.
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