Gen Z consumers on Amazon are rising in buying power. This represents a growing opportunity for brands that understand their values and specific shopping behaviors. Some sources estimate Gen Z’s buying power to be between $143 to $323 billion.
Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z is currently between 10 and 25. years old. They are the first generation of digital natives. They are adept with social media and online shopping. For example, 90% of Gen Z owns a phone and makes 50% of purchases online. Gen Z is also highly familiar with Amazon, with 88% agreeing they are more likely to buy products from Amazon than other e-commerce sites.
How to Appeal to Gen Z Shoppers on Amazon
Gen Z appreciates brands that are authentic, transparent, and have a greater purpose. This makes brand storytelling on Amazon important. Build a compelling narrative explaining to consumers your brand mission and values- tell them why they should purchase from you. Additionally, consider that Gen Z are digital natives with short attention spans when it comes to online shopping. Amazon’s platform gives consumers an overwhelming amount of options, and it’s the seller job to cut through the noise. Gen Z doesn’t want to browse through every listing that pops up in the SERP. Make sure your listing stands out, or it likely won’t be part of Gen Z’s consideration set.
Survey on Gen Z Shopping Behaviors
Envision Horizons conducted a survey of 25 Gen Z consumers to learn more about their shopping behaviors. Survey participants were born between the years 1997 and 2003. 80% of respondents identified as female, 20% identified as male. All respondents have a high school education or higher.
General Online Shopping Behaviors
When asked “Do you prefer the experience of online shopping or in-person shopping?” 28% of respondents said they prefer shopping in person, 12% of respondents said they prefer shopping online, and 60% of respondents answered: “it depends”.
When asked, “What products would you prefer to purchase in-store rather than online (if any)?” the most popular response was “clothing” with 72% of respondents saying they would typically rather purchase clothing at a physical store as opposed to online. The second most popular answer was “food”, with 64% of respondents saying they typically prefer to purchase food in person. The third most popular answer was personal items such as cosmetics, skincare, and toiletries.
When asked the question “Where do you do most of your online shopping?”, 88% of respondents listed Amazon as one of their preferred online shopping destinations.
Shopping on Amazon
When asked “Have you shopped on Amazon before?” 100% of respondents answered yes. 84% of respondents also responded yes to being Amazon Prime Members, and 16% responded that they were not Amazon Prime members.
Of the 84% of respondents that were Amazon Prime members, 81% said that they are deterred from purchasing an item if it is not a Prime item (with free 2-day shipping).
When asked “Have you ever purchased an item through the “subscribe and save” program on Amazon?” 24% of participants said yes, and 76% of participants said no.
Survey respondents also felt that reviews on Amazon do have a strong impact on their purchasing decision, with 50% answering that customer reviews are “extremely important”…
Amazon Badges
Survey participants were asked three questions about Amazon’s listing badges.
First, they were asked “Do you prefer to buy items from Amazon that have a “Best-Seller” badge?”. 52% of participants responded yes, 40% of participants responded no, and 8% of participants responded that they did not know what the best-seller badge is.
Survey participants were then asked a similarly structured question- “Do you prefer to buy items from Amazon that have an “Amazon’s Choice” badge?”. 48% of participants responded yes, 52% of participants responded no, and 0% of participants responded that they did not know what the Amazon’s choice badge is.
Survey participants were also asked about the newer climate pledge friendly badge with the question “Do you prefer to buy items from Amazon that have a “Climate Pledge Friendly” badge?”. 32% of participants responded yes, 40% of participants responded no, and 28% of participants responded that they did not know what the climate pledge friendly badge is.
From these answers, we can conclude that our survey participants are most positively influenced by the “best-seller” badge, most familiar with the concept of the “amazon’s choice” badge, and both least familiar and least influenced by the “climate pledge friendly” badge.
Sentiments Towards Amazon
Survey respondents were asked two open-ended questions about what they like most about Amazon’s platform, and what they like least about Amazon’s platform.
When asked what their favorite thing about Amazon’s platform was, the most popular answers included convenience, delivery/shipping speed, and the wide variety of options.
When asked what their least favorite thing about Amazon’s platform was, the most popular answers included illegitimate/untrustworthy sellers, an overwhelming amount of product options, and Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos.
TikTok and Amazon
80% of survey respondents answered yes to the question “Do you watch videos on TikTok?”. Of these 20 respondents, 65% said that TikTok has influenced them to purchase a product. Of these 13 respondents, 76.9% (10 respondents) answered that they have been influenced by TikTok to purchase a product off on Amazon.
In other words, 40% of total survey respondents answered that TikTok has influenced them to purchase a product from Amazon.
In Conclusion
Our survey of Gen Z shoppers brought some interesting insights into their behavior and values. First, it revealed that our pool of Gen Z participants prefers Amazon Prime items. They put a high value on convenience and fast delivery. Also, Gen Z respondents were positively influenced by Amazon’s “best seller” badge, somewhat influenced by the “Amazon’s Choice” badge, and not significantly affected by the “climate pledge friendly” badge.
Because survey respondents answered that both their favorite and least favorite things about Amazon’s platform are the wide variety of product options. we can appeal to them by having our product stand out in the SERP for an easier purchasing experience. Since respondents were wary of illegitimate/untrustworthy resellers, we can add language or images to our listing that help reassure them we are a legitimate seller of our products.
Finally, we also learned that TikTok could be a powerful way to drive Amazon sales from Gen Z. This makes TikTok influencers a good option to consider when implementing strategies for driving external traffic to the platform.
