The CQ: Uber, Venmo and PayPal for Kids, and Rising Dollar Store Popularity With the 1%
Our Top Reads of the Week
The CQ is Forerunner’s weekly newsletter rounding up the most pressing consumer news and analysis, plus some bonus musing from our investment team. Subscribe now to get the latest edition in your inbox every Saturday.
By Forerunner
What We’re Talking About on Slack:
Today’s teens have more financial firepower and tech-driven autonomy than past generations. Remember asking your parents for allowance or a ride? Now Uber, Paypal, and Venmo have recently joined Cash App, Fidelity, and Amazon in introducing apps targeted at teens ages 13 to 17. Acting as a “financial learner’s permit,” these apps allow parents to grant kids some independence and teach them how to manage finances while still being able to monitor their spending. “The teen apps are likely to continue proliferating as they are a proven way for tech companies to attract younger customers and retain them into adulthood.”
One-percenters’ newest shopping destination? The dollar store. They see no shame in saving a buck during these high-inflation times, and on the contrary, it’s actually considered savvy and maybe even cool (videos tagged with #dollartree have 7.6B views on TikTok). There’s been a 4% average increase in the share of dollar-store visits this year among those making more than $100,000, compared with the second half of 2022. And: households with six-figure incomes are 15% more likely to say they would shop at dollar stores than they were last June, going from 39% to 45%.
Gen Xers and older Millennials are craving simpler times. According to a new Harris poll, 77% of Americans between the ages of 35 to 54 say they’d prefer to live during a time before the internet and smartphones. They’re not alone: 63% of 18- to 34-year-olds and 60% of Boomers are on board with this, too. That said, it’s not so straightforward — 90% say it’s still important to be open to new tech, even though half of respondents feel tech is more likely to divide people than unite them. Even Gen Alpha (that’s the generation younger than Gen Z) is going offline more: a different survey of over 30,000 kids ages 8 to 15 found that there’s been about a 10% drop in the time they spend online since 2021, while there’s been an increase in seeing friends IRL (up 23%) and playing sports (up 18%).
The Wall Street Journal looks at how retailers and consumer brands scramble to reinvent products and experiences in record time to cash in on TikTok trends before they peter out. TikTok, which has turned things like Pink Sauce, Chipotle’s “Keithadilla,” and color-changing makeup into viral sensations, has been compared to “a billion-person focus group” by one fashion company exec. “Companies scramble to mass-produce products, or fix existing ones, based on feedback that often has a very short shelf life. It’s a gamble — one that many executives say is necessary if they want to win over younger shoppers and keep up with the competition.
By 2025, Amazon will be the largest U.S. retailer in beauty, predicts Morgan Stanley. Amazon is expected to make up about 14.5% of the beauty market that could hit $180 billion in value, beating out the current leader, Walmart (projected to be at 13%).
Etsy used to be all about handmade and vintage goods, but now it’s increasingly infiltrated by scammers, who selling knockoffs or dropshipping (when an item is posted for sale—often stealing the photo from another retailers—that seller doesn’t even have, but orders from a source like Alibaba whenever there’s a buyer). This problem is one of the reasons why 35,000 Etsy vendors went on strike and formed the advocacy group, Indie Sellers Guild. “Last year, the company reported annual revenue of nearly $2.6 billion — a 10%+ spike over the year prior. Among other issues, creators see the increase in counterfeiters on the platform as a result of Etsy prioritizing growth over being able to enforce its standards.”
There’s encouraging new data from Carta on race, ethnicity, and age related to founders of companies started between 2021 and 2022. TL;DR - younger founders are more likely to be people of color than founders in years past. Of founders ages 21 to 30, 49% identify as people of color: 12% East Asian, 10% Hispanic, 9% Black, and 10% “other.” In contrast, the percentage of POC founders in the 61-to-80 age range is 17%; and 31% for the 51-to-60 range, and about 40% for the 31-to-50 range.
According to a new study, almost 15% of potential home buyers in the country’s 50 largest metro areas are Gen Zers who are choosing to buy homes in smaller cities. Number one on the list with the highest percentage of loan requests is Salt Lake City. The other top picks are Oklahoma City, Birmingham, AL, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, KY, and Minneapolis. While more affordable than San Francisco, New York, and San Jose (all at the bottom of the list), these areas “often skew a little bit younger and that can attract maybe a younger crowd that wants the best of both worlds — they want to live in a city, but they also want to be close to nature.” Then there are the young Americans that are moving to Europe in pursuit of work-life balance.
Anxiety screenings are now recommended for most American adults ages 19 to 64, says the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.“Only 11% of U.S. adults with an anxiety disorder started treatment within the first year of onset; the median time to treatment initiation was 23 years. A U.S. study of 965 primary care patients found that only 41% of patients with an anxiety disorder were receiving treatment for their disorder.”
Every demographic group in the U.S. has seen a decline in people becoming less religious, but churches offer something that these folks are missing: community. The New York Times looks at the Americans who are moving away from religion in the most significant percentages: those without high school diplomas, who are single, who don’t have children, and who earn less than $50,000 a year.
Portfolio Highlights:
GQ interviews Tally Health co-founder Dr. David Sinclair on his longetivity diet.
A Modern Retail feature on Kale reports how the brand is growing by word of mouth using its strategy of enlisting everyday shoppers as brand ambassadors.
Ritual’s founder and CEO Katerina Markov Schneider joined both the Female Startup Club podcast and the Behind Her Empire podcast to talk about self-care, raising capital, and more.
Melissa Seligmann, COO of Thingtesting, speaks to Modern Retail about food packaging and how to compete on the shelf.
Vogue’s feature on new tech that optimizes sleep highlights the Oura ring.
Carla Dunham, Away’s CMO, talks TV strategy, travel trends and Pride month with AdAge.
Good Housekeeping tests out the Oura ring, calling it “a keeper.”
Jonathan Van Ness proclaims his love for Necessaire body care products in Elle.
Work at a Portfolio Company:
Acquisition Analyst, Finance | Homebound: Homebound is on a mission to make it possible for anyone, anywhere, to build a home using technology. This will work with collaborative and strategic acquisitions team responsible for Homebound’s new property acquisitions, helping underwrite and coordinate due diligence activities in both new and existing markets.
Associate Product Manager | KiwiCo: KiwiCo is an e-commerce company that sparks kids’ creativity and curiosity through offline and online ways to explore, create, and learn. This role will help manage the entire product development lifecycle from ideation, requirements definition, to launch and optimization.
Director of Operations | Eclipse: Eclipse has developed the world's first plant-based dairy tech platform, which makes plant-based products that are indistinguishable from conventional dairy, helping transform the $500B dairy industry. This role will drive all things operations, from logistics and supply chain, to co-manufacturing, quality assurance, and customer service.
There are ~518 other openings on our jobs site. Check ‘em out.