Age matters
The impact of a consumer's life-stage on FMCG product trends
Based on the consumer shopping behaviour data we have collected for more than 20 years, we can divide consumers' lives into stages as follows.
Pre-Family stage: Living alone or as a couple; no children yet; less than 50 years old. They are the prevalent population in urban areas, especially in BKK.
Young & Mature Family stage: Consists of at least three family members – and we can break it down further to families with a baby 0-3 yrs; with kids 4-12 yrs; with teenagers, or mixed adults. This is the largest group in Thailand and is relatively high spending, as the number of household members increases, which triggers the need to buy more categories.
Post-Family stage: Also living alone or in a couple; no children at home; over 50 years old. These households may have passed the period of having children, or their children have already moved out to start their own family, which we see a lot in modern times.
Each life-stage and generation exhibits different needs and shopping behaviours.
Let’s look at Take-Home FMCG first. Trends in this market have been influenced by the fact that Thai households have returned to taking part in activities outside their homes as normal.
Comparing behaviour at each life-stage between 2023 and 2022, the Older Singles/Couples continued to increase their shopping frequency the most, followed by Younger Singles/Couples, while frequency declined among Young & Mature Families from the beginning of 2023. If we focus on Families with a Baby, we see that their spend per trip was higher than the previous year.
Young Singles/Couples are the top FMCG spenders, with 855 occasions across all FMCG categories, while Young & Mature Families have different needs based on their household members. Families with a Baby are spending more than 12,000 THB each on beverages in a year. Each buyer in Families with Kids is purchasing up to 2,000 THB worth of impulse food per year, while Families with Teenagers are buying 6% more beauty products than last year.
The number of households in each life-stage has changed since early 2023, with Mixed Adult Families being the group that has altered the most. It has grown by more than 13% in one year, significantly impacting overall consumer behaviour in the FMCG market. Despite the number of Older Singles/Couples declining they are the key buyers of personal care products, with a 12% year-on-year growth in shopping occasions in this category.
Consumers in each generation have different OOH purchasing behaviours at different times. For example, teenagers (15-19 yrs) buy food and beverage products throughout the day, making most purchases in the early evening. First jobbers (20-29 yrs) and workers (30-39 yrs) make the majority of their purchases in lunch breaks and after work.
Looking at the overall market picture, we see that the highest number of occasions is in the morning – up 9.6% compared with the previous year – but afternoon purchases have decreased by 2.5%. If brands and businesses are able to set product strategies that meet the needs of consumers both in the morning and in the afternoon, they will be able to increase the number or the frequency of purchases.
Similar to the Take-Home market, shoppers are rationalising their spend in different ways from one sector to another. Kantar’s analysis reveals four key trends in the OOH market:
Teenagers are the group with the highest frequency of purchasing goods outside the home during the past year, buying 230 times across food and beverages. Meanwhile, the first jobber group is the only one that consumes health beverage products – but even they have changed their behaviour from consuming them with every meal to drinking one in the morning only.
The alcohol beverage category has been able to attract new buyers from the worker group, with 9% penetration growth compared to last year. But the highest spending power belongs to the middle-aged group, with OOH consumption reaching more than 7,900 baht per year, with most purchases being made from 7:00pm to 8:00pm.
Once they understand Thai consumers' behaviours and product preferences, brands need to take both into consideration when deciding where to focus and what to prioritise – and also which life-stage to target to attract buyers. Brands and businesses in each food and beverage sector may need a different strategy to ride the growing trends, and grow sustainably.
