Retailing and Older Adults

In addition to traditional advertising and store shopping, retailers and marketers have also promoted products and services to older adults through nonstore ventures including catalog, direct mail, and electronic shopping on cable television and the Internet. These methods of promoting and selling are often called ‘‘direct marketing’’ or ‘‘direct retailing.’’ Both catalog and electronic shopping can be convenient for older adults. Although most products could be sold through catalogs or the Internet, some more readily lend themselves to this form of retailing. Insurance, credit cards, magazines, books, clothing, audiocassette tapes and CDs, toys, and gardening supplies are frequently sold to older adults through direct marketing (McDonald).

The products most likely to be sold to older adults through direct marketing are not widely distributed. In other words, a product such as paper towels would seldom be sold by direct marketing because it is readily available in outlets ranging from grocery stores to discount and drug stores. Obviously, most consumers would not want to wait for this type of product to be shipped when they could easily purchase it at a local store. On the other hand, supplements designed to help keep older adults’ bodies more flexible or tools to assist with a hobby such as musical instrument tuning and repair can be more effectively sold through direct marketing. To reduce the risk to consumers who are purchasing goods they cannot see or touch, unconditional guarantees are a standard business practice in the direct marketing industry (Katzenstein and Sachs).