Survey: Under-55 consumers seek rewarding shopping experience

Retailers seeking to draw millennial and GenX shoppers should create a robust rewards program.

According to a new survey of millennial and Gen X consumers (roughly covering ages 23-54) from mobile payments/rewards platform Zipline, over 70% of GenX men and women are more likely to shop with retailers that offer rewards programs. This is also true for more than 60% of millennial men. Rewards can include programs such as awarding points, "surprise & delight" offers, fuel discounts, and clubs.

Millennial males look for a balance between immediate rewards and long-term value, with 30% prioritizing immediate rewards and 30% finding long-term value to be most important. Millennial women are most likely to seek immediate rewards, followed by exclusive perks. For 45% of GenX women, immediate rewards are the most important, while 20% primarily seek out exclusive perks.

The study also shows that consumers in these two generations, especially women, prefer debit for everyday spending. For transactions between $10 and $250, more than 45% of all respondents prefer debit payments over credit (37%) and cash (18%). This is especially true for women, over half of whom prefer debit payments to credit on a daily basis. 

"Our research suggests that rewards combined with debit payment remain largely an untapped market," said ZipLine chief marketing office Kristen Bailey. "This is great news for retailers, who are eager to put the profits traditionally eaten away by interchange fees to better use: Inspiring customer loyalty."

Conducted by Google in July, a national survey analyzed a sample of 500 adults in the millennial and GenX categories.