New consuming class: Teenagers over 60 years

Senagers’ — 60-plus seniors, who in a lot of ways behave like teenagers — are a growing consuming class in India. After a good career run of a few decades, today’s urban-centric senagers have a disposable income and are spending, be it on lifestyle products, eating out or investing in financial products.

A CII study on senior consumers has pegged the market for their medical needs and lifestyle products at Rs 43,000 crore. But the potential market size driven by senior citizens is as large as Rs 1,00,000 crore (excluding categories like real estate and pharmacy, along with banking, financial services & insurance, or BFSI). Of this, only Rs 10,000 crore has been tapped so far.

According to the report, the 60+ population forms 25% of the cumulative assets of existing banking deposits, while the available market is a whopping Rs 1,67,000 crore.

In a clear indication that senagers are behaving like teenagers, RPG Group-backed Seniority, a dedicated shopping destination for senior citizens, is clocking an order a minute (around 1,500 in a day with an average order value at Rs 800-900).

Seniority co-founder Ayush Agrawal said, “It is easy to assume that 60-70% of our consumers are healthy, apart from a few minor pain points here and there. We have an equal mix of medical and lifestyle products, but 80% of our sales come from the lifestyle products targeted at senior citizens.”

The Indian Hotels Company (IHCL), which analysed data on senior citizen travellers from 2014 onwards, found that revenue from this segment of guests has been growing at 14% year-on-year. The travellers are mostly within India, followed by the US, the UK, Australia & France. “We see that the revenues from this group have shown an increasing trend. This can be attributed to the contributions coming from their use of a higher category of rooms, food & beverage and spa,” said a company spokesperson.

Senagers are hanging out at malls as well. Viviana Malls CEO (malls) Manoj Agarwal said there is a significant presence of senior citizens on both weekdays and weekends at their Thane mall. “We have seen a growing trend wherein more and more married senior citizen couples on their own are visiting malls for shopping, eating out, watching movies and at times just to spend time together in a comfortable environment,” said Agarwal.

“We do find that some amount of impulse shopping happens. Though, in our experience, it is more for their children and grandchildren rather than themselves,” he added.

Viviana Mall has introduced a lounge exclusively for senior citizens and it also has a golf cart pick-up and drop service in the basement parking for ease of movement from where the car is parked to the lift/escalator lobbies.

“In view of this, we are actively exploring further offering of customised services for this growing senior citizen segment, being a significant part of our rather large and vibrant customer base,” said Agarwal.

At 130 million (recorded at 98.3 million by Census 2011), India is home to the second-largest 60-plus population in the world. People over 60 are likely to form 12% of India’s population by 2025.

Source:- https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/new-consuming-class-teenagers-over-60-years/71384820