STATS: Grandma Online Shops More Than You

• Tweet

• Tweet

eMarketer reported that users above 65 year old are more likely to engage in e-commerce activities than any other age group.

Who said seniors are not web savvy?

Even though there aren’t many of them online, those who are might even have more friends than you on Facebook. Just look at Great Grandmother, Ivy Bean!

To get users above 65 year old online, people are coming up with ideas to make the web as elderly friendly as possible. A good example would be pawpawmail, a simple Email platform for seniors.

The buttons are even enlarged to help them see clearly. Valerie Singleton also created a six button PC to flatten the learning curve for elderly.

So what are the current senior users doing online?

Almost all of them are using the web to send and receive Emails. 77% are shopping online and about 71% use the web to search for health and medical information. This could be good news for companies selling elderly products and services. Going online might help create a new revenue stream!

Another interesting result is that even though playing free online games is the least popular activity, half of the respondents actually engage in it. Could free games be the culprit for a greying Facebook?

Targeting the 65+ age group

All these data could be very useful for online businesses targeting the 65+ age group.

Examples of some marketing strategies that can be formed using the data:

• Businesses in the health care related industry can set up blogs giving free health and medical tips
• E-commerce sites for elderly should cater to their needs (big buttons, easy navigation and less confusing boxes)
• Create Facebook games applications specially for elderly to promote your business indirectly