Macy's Woos Millennials With New Brands, Digital Moxie

Baby Boomers aren’t spending as much as they used to on discretionary items as the focus their dollars on generally more necessary spending. Because of that, retailers are doing what two of our nation’s most famous Boomers, Woodward and Bernstein, told us all to do: Follow the money.

That discretionary cash is starting to be spent by the millennials, the generation that is currently aged between 13 and 30, and retailers are all trying to figure out ways to part them from their cash. CNBC reports that Macy’s, which already woos tween girls with Madonna's Material Girl juniors collection, has a three-year plan in place to help bring more young shoppers into their stores.

"We believe we have great opportunity to accelerate sales growth among customers in this generation,” said Jeffrey Gennette, Macy's chief merchandising officer, in an interview with CNBC. “Doing so requires us to think from the customer's point of view about our assortments and store experience and to align our internal resources so we can move quickly and with focus."

Macy’s currently has two departments that cater to this generation and receive most of the attention in the three-year effort: mstylelab for the 13-22 year olds and Impulse for those between 19 and 30.

The plan, after sifting through all the data, is to focus on four different lifestyle profiles and bring in new brands that will cater to those different groups.

To reach those digital natives, social media is already a priority (the brand just passed 5 million Facebook 'likes.') Additionally, the retailer's marketing team aims to “refine its use of QR codes, tablets, texting, tap-and-go transaction processing and mobile offers” in order to capitalize on the tech-savvy generation that tends to buy either value items or high-end luxury items.