With the epidemic of the coronavirus consumers over the age of 50 more than before using online services, digital payments, care, online conferences and shopping. It forces companies to pay more attention to consumers of older age, technological skills which many participants of the market not so long ago were underestimated because of prejudice and stereotypes.Last week the British unit of Spanish Bank Santander said that since the beginning of the epidemic and quarantine measures, more than half (54%) of clients older than 55 years have increased their use of various Internet services. A third of respondents from this group reported that they subscribed to at least three new online services in the areas of shopping, socialization, online meetings and more, and other entertainment online.Among the main reasons for changes in the behavior of consumers indicated that these services allow them to leave the house less in terms of the epidemic, to save time and to better keep in touch with their family and friends.The Director of the office Santander UK safety Chris Ainsley in this regard, said: “it is Very gratifying to see that consumers aged 55+ actively try to use new services, thus attempting to overcome the difficulties arising in front of them during the epidemic.”A similar trend is noted and the payment service PayPal. From March to April, its fastest growing audience become consumers aged 50 years. New users of PayPal have helped significantly to offset the decline in revenue because of the epidemic and even to return to pre-crisis levels. PayPal notes that, while in terms of isolation, consumers older began to experiment with new services, increasingly using online services to pay for goods in online shops or for making/receiving money transfers.”We observed very stable new trend in our business,” said last week PayPal CFO John Rainey at a video conference on technologies and communications, organized by JP Morgan Chase.Analysts have long warned that consumers older than 50 years are very profitable, but underestimated source of profit for high-tech companies. According to experts of venture Fund Mangrove Capital, this often occurs due to stereotypes and prejudices of the younger generation that comprises the majority of employees and managers technology and marketing companies. Earlier they doubted the technological skills of the older generation.Respondents said that most, in their opinion, ignore the age of consumers of the fashion industry (more than a third of respondents) and technology sector (25%).Experts note that “in contrast to the representationare a lot of young product developers and marketing agencies 65-year-old people do not want to carry simple phones with big red panic button”. They want to use all capabilities of modern mobile devices. For consumers older who are active users of technology, experts and market participants have even introduced a special term — silver tech (by analogy with the already established term silver dollar — “gray dollar”, which refers to the purchasing activity of the elderly).Particularly relevant to use trends silver tech becomes the more General tendency of global population aging. By 2060, only in the US people aged 65 years will be 98 million, which is twice more than in 2014. And all over the world, their number will double by 2050, reaching 1.6 billion people.While in OECD countries there is a very high purchasing power of the population aged 50 years. In 2015 the British are aged over 50 spent £320 billion — 47% of the total consumption expenditure in the UK and 40% more than in 2003. Now 69.7% of the appraised value of the assets of all British households is in the hands of people over 50 years, that is £6.2 trillion.While Mangrove two years ago noted that nearly two-thirds of Britons aged 50 years own smartphones. One third of them already actively used instant messengers such as WhatsApp to communicate with relatives and friends. Almost half (43%) used social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.Eugene Tail
