Dealers and OEMs: it’s time to think forward for influencers of tomorrow

Impact of changing generations on shopping behaviors

Most brands are attuned to likes, dislikes and shopping behaviors of the tech-savvy generation. It takes a lot of time to perfect a formula to get grip with changing generations from understanding their buying habits to how brand loyal they are. Furthermore, similar to the last year’s iPhone and fashion, earlier generation is being replaced by a new, demanding and young generation. A new generation is coming up as the latest and greatest batch of consumers. Budding generations bring a new worldview and diverse expectations as citizens, employees, and customers.

How Budding Gen differs from Earlier Gen?

Budding generation is the most digitally-attuned generation that grew up with tabs, mobiles in their hands. This generation downloads music and books, plays games online and heads to YouTube for movies. This is the most influential group that lives in a world of continuous updates. This technology trendsetter generation is the one to bring innovation and offers the best preview of future trends including communication, banking, technology usage, and shopping patterns. The perspective of this emerging generation towards the world is unique and differs from earlier generations in terms of their attitudes toward money, to their outlook on technology and this certainly reflects in their shopping habits.

What’s similar?

Although changing generations bring many shifts, digital access is the thread that connects them. Earlier generations and budding generations like to connect to companies and brands they can believe in. Overall, though there is a change in the shopping patterns and behaviors, the buying habits of the modern as well as earlier generation revolve around not only a product but the participation as well.

Challenge or Opportunity!

The changing shopping pattern, customer demands and advancements in technology certainly pose a challenge for companies to put more resources toward managing and influencing these buyers online to build loyalty, exposure and brand awareness. OEMs, dealers, and retailers in a variety of industries including auto, FMCG manufacturing are spending billions of dollars to reach these new-age buyers. Numerous companies are investing time to understand this market and the channels they prefer and capture the attention of influencers of tomorrow. With information always at their fingertips, both modern and earlier generation consistently look forward to something different. This certainly spells a challenge for OEMs, dealers, and retailers to think forward and bring changes to get them a personalized, interactive experience. Serving to "always on," mobile-focused, high-spending demographic is certainly challenging.

So, what’s the solution?

The modern generation is a completely new type of buyer with their distinct perspective, shopping behaviors, expectations and demands. These digital natives always enjoy connectivity, expect instant information, real-time engagement, and convenience. Therefore, it becomes essential for dealerships and OEMs to invest time in understanding what motivates these generations. This is lucrative demographic and creating an experience that appeals to how they prefer to shop and communicate, can help excel business. Investing in smart technology tools like dealer management systems to help eradicate back-end inefficiencies and offset the drop in profits that results from widely-available pricing information can be a smart move here.

Excellon is all set to help manufacturers and dealers to capitalize on the huge opportunity these generations spell, with a modern, easy to use and flexible Dealer Management System.