“Many of us think about millennials a lot, but this is the generation we’re actually preparing the path for,” said Victor Bayata, head of mobile solutions at Ikea, speaking at the New York Mobile Marketing Association forum yesterday. Generation Z, according to Bayata’s definition, spans anyone born in the years 1992 to 2010. That would seem to overlap with many common definitions of millennials (like Goldman Sach’s, which defines the millennial generation as anyone born between 1980 and 2000). However they’re defined, younger millennials and anyone born around the turn of the century are “digital native,” and trendsetters when it comes to digital behaviors. 

Generation Z has already shown itself to be extremely web- and mobile-focused when it comes to shopping. Although this age group, given its youth, doesn’t have a great deal of spending power yet —  earning an average $13,000 annually in income, in the US —  it spends a significantly higher share of income online at 9% than any other age cohort (see chart, below, in which Generation Z is defined as anyone born between 1990 and 1996).