Piper Jaffray’s 37th semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey finds athletic brands overall remaining strong. Lululemon and Vans both achieved new survey highs. Among favorite footwear brands, Vans was the closest any brand has been to Nike in years.

Overall, the survey highlights discretionary spending trends and brand preferences amongst 8,000 teens across 47 U.S. states with an average age of 16. Generation Z, which contributes approximately $830 billion to U.S. retail sales annually, represents an influential consumer group where wallet size and allocation provide a proxy for category interest, noted Piper Jaffray.

In the footwear category, Nike continued its dominance with 41 percent of respondents calling Nike their favorite footwear brand. Second was Vans, at 20 percent; followed by Adidas, 13 percent; Converse, 5 percent; and Foot Locker, 3 percent.

In apparel, Nike again ranked as the favorite brand, at 22 percent. That was followed by American Eagle, 9 percent; Adidas, 5 percent; Forever 21, 5 percent; and Hollister, 3 percent.

The top shopping website was not unsurprisingly Amazon, at 50 percent with Nike coming in second, as 5 percent of respondents picked it as their favorite site. The remaining top-five top shopping websites were Urban Outfitters, 4 percent; American Eagle, 3 percent; and Fashion Nova, 2 percent.

Broadly, the survey found:

  • Overall teen spending up 6 percent from fall 2018 and up 1 percent from a year ago
    • Athletic brands remain strong; Vans and Lululemon each achieved new survey highs
    • Video games is one of the most notable share gainers at 14 percent
    • Half of all teens rank Amazon as preferred shopping website (44 percent last spring)
    • Favorite social media platform is Snapchat but Instagram is cited as the most used; Facebook engagement stabilizes

“Our Spring Teen Survey further validated several characteristics of this digitally-native demographic; 83 percent of teens have an iPhone, 50 percent claim Amazon as their favorite website and video game consumption hit an all-time high in our survey,” said Erinn Murphy, Piper Jaffray senior research analyst. “Broadly, casualization of fashion continues and footwear is gaining wallet share. Brands Lululemon and Vans hit survey peak share. Within beauty, ULTA was the No. 1 preferred destination—unseating competitor Sephora for the first time.”

Other key findings in the survey:

  • Food continues to be male teens’ No. 1 spending category (23 percent), clothing is female teens’ No. 1 wallet share (25 percent)
  • Male spending on video games reaches a new peak at 14 percent
  • 90 percent of female teens preferred shopping for beauty in-store vs. online
  •  80 percent of teens say they get their beauty tips from influencers – Kylie Jenner and James Charles listed as favorite beauty influencers on social media•
  • Fashion Nova steps into top 5 shopping websites for females; StockX moves up for males (No. 9)
    Brand Preferences
  • Chick-fil-A remains No. 1 restaurant for 3 surveys•
  • Lululemon hits all-time survey high (No. 2 preferred athletic apparel brand, No. 8 overall apparel)•
  • ULTA overtakes Sephora as preferred beauty destination for the first time at 31 percent•
  • Mario Badescu continues its upward trend, rising to No. 2 (versus No. 6 last spring)•
  • iPhone ownership peaks at 83 percent and smartwatch ownership is up significantly at 27 percent

The Piper Jaffray Taking Stock With Teens® survey is a semi-annual research project that gathers input from 8,000 teens with an average age of 16 years. Discretionary spending patterns, fashion trends, technology, and brand and media preferences are assessed through surveying a geographically diverse subset of high schools across the U.S. Since the project began in 2001, Piper Jaffray has surveyed more than 170,000 teens and collected over 44 million data points on teen spending.

A more extensive analysis is available in SGB Executive.

Image courtesy Journeys