Retail shopping typology of American teens

Teenagers often use labels to describe each other (i.e., cool, geek, hottie) as shorthand that sums up a teen in the minds of his or her peers. Marketers use the same kind of heuristic devices to describe segments in target markets. Currently measuring over 30 million strong, today's teens are the adult consumers of tomorrow. Therefore, marketers need the ability to divide this teen market into unique segments. In this study, the authors develop a psychographic retail shopping typology of American teens' retail channel preferences depending on levels of self-esteem (SE), extraversion, and interpersonal communication (IC). Three distinct market segments evolve – Social Butterflies, Confident Techies, and Self-Contained Shoppers – and link to channel shopping, spending, and future intentions. These segment descriptions should be valuable to retailers in determining primary teen markets and how to best market to them.