Dive Brief:
- Continuing its influence among teenage consumers, 59% of the 6,020 teenage respondents in Piper Sandler’s 47th semi-annual Taking Stock with Teens survey said that Nike was their favorite footwear brand. Thirty-four percent of survey respondents also named Nike as their top clothing brand, Piper Sandler found.
- More than a third (38%) of survey respondents named E.l.f Cosmetics as their top cosmetics brand, followed by Rare Beauty (9%), Maybelline (6%), Charlotte Tilbury (5%) and Fenty Beauty (4%).
- More than half (55%) of teens said that Amazon was their top e-commerce site, followed by Shein (12%), Nike (6%), Goat (2%) and Temu (2%), per the survey results.
Dive Insight:
Nike remains the leading clothing and shoe brand for teenage consumers, but has seen a dip in interest. The brand’s share in footwear decreased 190 basis points year over year and 230 basis points compared to Piper Sandler’s fall 2023 research.
Among athletic footwear brands in particular, Hoka and On increased share among upper-income teens, while Nike lost 510 basis points among that cohort. In apparel, Lululemon maintained its second place positioning, but Alo Yoga and Vuori both saw dramatic spikes in popularity, earning the 11th and 15th spots, respectively, up from 35th and 24th in the fall.
Piper Sandler’s current survey also offers some insight into teenagers’ shifting financial situation. The survey found that teenagers’ self-reported spending was $2,263, up 1% compared to last fall’s survey, but down 6% year over year, “well below pre-pandemic levels,” Abbie Zvejnieks, senior research analyst at Piper Sandler, said in a statement. By contrast, teens reported spending $2,367 in Piper Sandler’s spring 2022 survey and $2,274 in its fall 2021 survey.
“We are seeing some significant shifts in brand preferences including the rise of smaller, innovative brands which are taking share from incumbents,” Zvejnieks said. “We think social media has led to an accelerated trend cycle including an increased emphasis on key products, and brands will have to be nimble to keep up.”
Piper Sandler’s report also builds upon research suggesting that TikTok and Instagram are the top platforms for younger users. The survey found that 35% of respondents cited TikTok as their top social media platform, followed by Instagram (30%) and Snapchat (22%). Meanwhile, another survey from ICSC released last year found that 45% of Gen Z respondents said TikTok and Instagram were the dominant platforms that swayed their buying decisions, surpassing YouTube (38%), Facebook (24%), Snapchat (17%), X (14%) and Reddit (7%).
Piper Sandler’s most recent data shows that Coach remains a popular brand among teenagers. Nearly a quarter (23%) of survey respondents named Coach as their top handbag brand, followed by Louis Vuitton (10%), Kate Spade (9%), Michael Kors (9%) and Lululemon (6%). That proportion is higher than the survey released last fall, which found that (19%) of teenagers named Coach as their top handbag brand. However, the fall 2023 survey had a larger sample size of teenagers at more than 9,000 respondents.
