Better living through discounts: the ‘save now to spend later’ student vibe

Sing it with us, everybody!

The Gen Z attitude towards spending… is actually the inverse: it’s an attitude towards saving.

Like quokkas, fresh sheets, and the Michael Buble Christmas album, 100% of the Aussie students we surveyed in our 3,000-strong research project said they loved discounts.

Perhaps more surprising is the finding that 78% of the respondents admitted to only shopping with brands that offer discounts.

Oh, and one more thing: a discount is always appreciated… but it’s not until the 20% Off mark that Gen Z shoppers get excited.

Save now to spend later. Words to live by.
Our student panel tends to view a ‘discount’ more as a ‘saving’, with the conclusion being that if they saved $50 on a purchase, that meant $50 more in disposable income.

Using data across all our categories — Food + Drink, Beauty, Lifestyle, Fashion, Health + Fitness — from March 2018 to March 2019, we found students saved an average of $15.55 per transaction shopping via UNiDAYS. That’s lunch sorted.

In terms of messaging and positioning, ‘save now to spend later’ keeps things positive — looking towards the joy of future purchases and eschewing any potential ‘cheaparse’ associations.

That being said, we did issue irreverent (and popular) “I’m a cheaparse” tote bags during O-Week 2019, so the latter point mightn’t even be an issue #selfawarestudents.

Wear it with pride, student friends. Taken at UNSW during our 2019 O-Week activation (overall, 16 campuses around Australia were graced by our presence).

Come for the mini-golf, stay for the vouchers (these could be redeemed online or in-store).

Don’t be shy.
Although 78% of respondents identify as discount-hunters, the student bargain/coupon/discount culture isn’t nearly as established/ubiquitous in ANZ as it is in the UK and US (our big sister markets).

In fact, a surprising amount of students interviewed said they were embarrassed to ask for their discount in-store. Who could’ve foreseen a scenario where merely redeeming an offer was like one of those awkward movie scenes where there’s a PRICE CHECK ON CONDOMS.

In ANZ we need to make student offers as visible and obvious to this audience as our payment gateway friends have — then they don’t even have to ask, they’ll just spend.

Let’s normalise bargains, people! Give the students what they want.

Flush with cash: we’ll promote discounts ANYtime, ANYwhere.