Needs of senior consumers often overlooked

Despite possessing more than 75% of the nation's wealth, the needs and preferences of the country's 78 million Baby Boomers, and other members of the senior market, are often overlooked.

Through focus groups, a nationwide study and polls of manufacturers, Varsity Marketing is working to create a predictive model based on the emotional mindset and physiological needs of consumers over 55. So far, it's learned that the top issues among members of the age group when shopping in retail are: Items are hard to reach (54%); items are hard to find (27%); crowds are difficult to navigate (27%); and prices are hard to read (22%). Other preliminary findings reveal that buy-one, get-one-free offers don't appeal to members of the group since they're looking for smaller portions; items like half a loaf of bread could support higher prices for this reason; and the font used for on-package messages alerting shoppers of easy-open tabs needs to be larger.

Steve - businesses better start changing their practices for the betterment of this part of the population as well as for their bottom line.