Courting the Teen E-Shopper

Capturing the teen market for online buying has always been a problem. While many teens have cash, most have to rely on borrowing mom’s or dad’s credit card to make online purchases, which often involves unwanted controls or supervision.

For this reason, many e-tailers have long ignored the buying power of this consumer group—a decision that industry experts say could prove to be fatally shortsighted.

Indeed, the power of the trendy teen and tween markets is nothing to sneeze at. According to Northbrook, Ill.–based Teenage Research Unlimited (www.teenresearch.com), 12- to 19-year-olds spent $175 billion in 2003, a 3 percent increase over 2002. A good chunk of that is in online apparel sales, as witnessed by the success of such teen-oriented fashion sites as the Abercrombie & Fitch Co.’s www.abercrombie.com, Delia’s Corp.’s www.delias.com and Alloy Inc.’s teen lifestyle por tal, www.alloy.com.

“Thanks to its unique circumstances— a great deal of disposable income paired with fewer recurring debts—the teen segment tends to have a much bolder attitude towards spending than does the general population,” TRU Vice President Michael Wood said.

Teens’ confidence in their spending ability for the upcoming year reflects this optimism. Some 79 percent of teens predict they’ll spend the same or more in 2004 as they did in 2003.

To combat the credit problem, some e-tailers have created prepaid cards that parents and teens can buy in bricks-and-mortar stores and then use to purchase products in another store or online. America Online Inc., with Visa Buxx, now offers the AOL Cash Card to teen users of AOL 9.0.

The card looks just like a regular Visa card with a magnetic strip and the user’s name embossed on it. There is no annual fee for AOL users, and the card can be used anywhere Visa is accepted.

The idea of the prepaid card, of course, is to give teens more autonomy over online purchases, and the strategy appears to be working. Last year, Generation Y—people ages 8 to 21—spent 14.5 percent of their annual income online compared with 11.8 percent the year before, said John Geraci, vice president of youth research at Rochester, N.Y.–based Harris Interactive Inc. (www.harrisinteractive.com).

“The average amount of money spent is $448,” said Geraci, who confirmed that borrowing a parent’s credit card is “not the way teenagers want to buy hellip; where they’re seeking approval for every transaction.”

Not surprisingly, two-thirds of 13- to 17-year-olds said they are very or somewhat interested in a prepaid card that parents can manage online, according to an AOL Money Management Skills survey. The trick for e-tailers and retailers that want to raise awareness and sales of prepaid cards is to market them simultaneously to parents, who are seeking security and spending limits, and to teens, who are looking for coolness and convenience.

Site Review: Hotntrendy.com has good ’n plenty

Where can you find hot and trendy clothes for less than $20? Check out Van Nuys, Calif.–based Hotntrendy.com, one of the few online stores to offer everything from casualwear to party dresses at prices that won’t break the bank.

“After years looking for places to shop online and not finding things that seemed more affordable than going to the malls, I decided to do something about it,” explained 23-year-old founder Antonia Payne.

Hotntrendy.com has met with nothing but success since it went online in September 2003. In addition to its everyday discounted prices, the site frequently has special offers.

“I just want people to realize that it does not have to cost a million dollars to look like a million dollars, and I will continue to do what it takes to bring trendy fashions to the public at these kinds of prices,” Payne said.

Face IT

Every industry has its lingo, but none can hold a candle to the new jargon of Internet technology, or IT.

It is a world knee-deep in acronyms: PDF, BMP, JCL, GIF, HTML hellip; you get the idea. And that’s only on the software side of things. It only gets worse when you start talking about hardware and networking.

If you are among the many of us who feel overwhelmed when talking to know-it-all Internet guru types (a.k.a. “consultants”)—who say “Web assets” when they are just talking about simple digital files containing pictures and text—then bookmark the following links: www.pcwebopedia.com, www.techdictionary.com, www.hyperdictionary.com and whatis.techtarget.com. These helpful Web sites define almost all the terms in the IT world’s lexicon.

Now you will know what IT pros mean when they refer to a router, an IP address, IP telephony, an encrypted firewall or improving the “eye-candy” on your site. But watch out for those database integrators. If they start talking about ColdFusion or XML interoperability, hit the brakes and go offline ASAP.