Gen Alpha Is Rewriting the Holiday Shopping Playbook

"These consumers are navigating retail entirely on their own terms: discovering brands through TikTok and YouTube, engaging with live streams on platforms like Twitch (which just launched its Amazon-powered live-shopping feature), hunting for deals and secondhand finds online, and often making purchase decisions of their own, or influencing those of their family members. Gen Alpha and Gen Z will account for 40% of fashion spending in the next decade, according to a new BCG study."

"For now, most of their spending power is indirect: the oldest Gen Alphas are 14, and need their parents to drive them to Sephora. "They're so young that many of them still rely on their parents to holiday shop," says Casey Lewis, a journalist and cultural analyst who writes "After School", a daily newsletter about youth consumer habits. "They don't really have their own spending money, and they don't have access to stores unless their parents take them.""

Gen Alpha (ages 7 to 14) is emerging as an influential and lucrative consumer cohort with shopping behaviors unlike previous generations. These children discover brands on TikTok and YouTube, engage with live streams on platforms like Twitch, search for deals and secondhand items online, and often make or influence purchase decisions for themselves and family members. Gen Alpha and Gen Z are projected to account for 40% of fashion spending over the next decade. Many Gen Alphas currently rely on parents for store access, but they already drive nearly half of household spending and $101 billion in direct annual U.S. spending. Social commerce closes the gap between inspiration and checkout and intensifies during holiday gift-focused content and live-shopping streams.

Read at Vogue