Anali Ekonomskog fakulteta u Subotici (Jan 2015)
Online purchasing and the elderly
Abstract
Elderly consumers have become a more significant market segment in developed welfare countries, due to their increased numbers and income growth. While their importance in marketing terms is generally recognised in the West, their online presence is not. Although seniors did not initially use the internet on an everyday basis, today they use it much as younger generations do. Although fewer websites are geared towards their needs and abilities, the World Wide Web offers many possibilities for seniors. This element of marketing in Central and Eastern Europe is still underestimated. We undertook this research to help to improve this situation. In the spring of 2013, we organised a questionnaire survey with the assistance of senior students at The Senior University in Győr in Hungary, and received responses from 556 people. We examined which media they are using, what time of the day they are using it, how they spend their time on the internet and how much time they spend. The answers given offer many opportunities for analysis.