Millennials' Online Shopping Statistics
With more than two billion online shoppers from all corners of the world, the demographics of digital consumers are wide and varied. As an ecommerce owner, it’s important to understand what your target audience enjoys to be able to cater your digital marketing strategy to their preferences.
Recent millennial online shopping statistics show that this demographic makes up 30% of the digital shopping population. But what do millennials buy online?
Millennial online shopping statistics: What do millennials buy online?
According to the latest millennial online shopping statistics, the top products that this group of consumers (defined as those currently aged 25 to 40) purchase over the internet are related to entertainment. Nearly half (47%) of millennials surveyed say they acquire entertainment online.
This is followed by electronic products, which 45% of millennials say they buy online, and clothing and shoes, at 42%. Incidentally, fashion and electronics are the two biggest online shopping categories worldwide in 2022, estimated at $990 billion and $970 billion, respectively.
Beauty is the fourth-largest online shopping category for millennials—36% of them say they buy beauty products online. This should come as no surprise, given that the global beauty industry market is expected to hit $534 billion in 2022. If you’re thinking about starting an online business in this sector, it may interest you to know that skin care tops the list of the most popular beauty products consumers purchase.
Leisure, sport, and hobby rounds out the top five, with 35% of millennials saying they purchase these items online. Pharmaceutical products and jewelry and accessories are also popular products for millennials to acquire online—just less than one in three (32% and 31%, respectively) purchase these items over the internet.
Here are the other top products millennials shop online for and the percentage of millennials who do so:
- Children products: 30%
- Automobile parts or accessories: 30%
- Groceries: 29%
- Home and garden: 29%
As these millennial online shopping statistics show, ecommerce is extremely popular among this demographic. Experts say this is because having grown up in a digital world, millennials tend to be very tech savvy. This is certainly evident when comparing their online shopping behavior to that of baby boomers. For instance, an analysis of baby boomer spending habits shows that much fewer of them shop online, independent of the product category.