Survey: Teen Spending Shifting To Starbucks, Amazon

Piper Jaffray Companies, a leading investment bank and asset management firm, completed its 33rd semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens research survey, which highlights spending trends and brand preferences amongst 5,500 teens across 43 U.S. states.

Since the project began in 2001, Piper Jaffray has surveyed more than 150,000 teens and collected over 38 million data points on teen spending in fashion, beauty and personal care, digital media, food, gaming and entertainment.

“While the overall spending environment has been challenging, we are seeing teen spending continue to shift more toward experiences—eating out, video games and leisure,” said Erinn Murphy, Piper Jaffray senior research analyst. “Share of fashion spending has moderated but we continue to see undisputed strength in athletic—Nike remains the No. 1 preferred brand and Adidas was the fastest-growing brand in our survey.”

Spring 2017 Key Findings

Spending & Shopping Behavior

• Overall teen spending decreased 2.4% year-over-year.
• Parent contribution to teen spend is at 63%, down from the survey’s 68% average.
• Food is the most important category within a teen’s wallet at 24% of spend, eclipsing clothing at 19%.
• Fashion share of wallet moved down from 38% to 36%.
• Teens’ favorite website is Amazon at 43% share—up 200 basis points year-over-year.
• For console video games, the percent of teens who plan to digitally download >50% of games increased to 45% for spring 2017 from 37% in fall 2015.

Brand Preferences

• Starbucks is the only public brand to maintain double-digit share across all teenagers; it tied this survey cycle with Chick-fil-A at 12% preference.
• Athletic is seeing no slowdown with 41% of teens citing an athletic brand as their preferred apparel brand—up from 26% last year.
• Nike is the No. 1 apparel brand at 31% share—up from 21% last year. Adidas, however, is the fastest growing brand in our survey across footwear & apparel.
• Fashion brands losing relevance with teens include Under Armour, Michael Kors, The North Face, Ralph Lauren and Vineyard Vines.
• 81% of teens expect their next phone to be an iPhone, which was up from 79% in fall 2016 and, more importantly, the highest we’ve seen ever in the survey.
• Disney films dominated the most anticipated movies list with No. 2 “Beauty and the Beast”; No. 3 “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”; and No. 4 “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” grabbing the top few spots. “Fast 8” is the No. 1 most anticipated movie.