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What if there is a secular change in the mood of your customers and your market? What don’t you know, what aren’t you paying attention to that will make you ROADKILL on the retail highway?

Your customers are thinking very differently, debt loading for the average consumer and family has reached it’s peak, consumers are having a lot of “oh, oh” moments.

Think of that feeling when you reach the peak of the massive roller coaster, and look down at the big drop below… That is what your customers and market are feeling right about now.

Are you prepared to take advantage of the opportunities?

- Elaine Wong

Baby boomers led the U.S. out of a downturn in the last two recessions, but this time around, it will be Gen Xers and millennials paving the way to economic recovery, according to a new report issued by PricewaterhouseCoopers today (Tuesday).

The study—called “The New Consumer Behavior Paradigm: Permanent or Fleeting?”—looks at how consumer spending has changed in the last two years. As the nation shifts into recovery mode (February’s unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent, per Department of Labor stats), retailers and packaged goods makers can expect the emergence of a more cost- and value-focused consumer. This consumer is also less likely to be driven by “rampant, deal-seeking,” the study found.

When the economy first hit rock bottom, cash-strapped consumers jumped into a frantic, bargain-seeking mode, said Lisa Feigen Dugal, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ U.S. retail and consumer practice advisory leader. Now, that intense focus on meeting budgets and saving any additional cash “will give way to more deliberate and purposeful” spending, Feigen Dugal said.

Baby boomers, however, will not be at the forefront of the economic recovery. That’s because the recession has eaten into this demographics’ savings and retirement accounts, reducing boomers’ ability to spend, Feigen Dugal explained.

The shift is an opportunity for marketers to court Gen Xers and Gen Yers via mobile technologies—including couponing applications, recipe and grocery shopping tools, and comparison-shopping sites, Feigen Dugal said. (Digital couponing is at an all-time high, with the former surpassing print or newspaper coupons by a factor of 10 to 1, per Coupons.com.)

Though Gen Xers and Gen Yers may have less savings income to spend, the latter is “entering its peak earning years,” while millennials have a higher propensity to spend their dollars, Feigen Dugal said. In addition, millennials tend to embrace the latest mobile technology much quicker. Advertisers can now run couponing offers on iPhones and other smartphones.

While there is now more wiggle room for discretionary purchases, the recession has left a permanent mark on shoppers of all ages. The study found that consumers are more likely take into consideration things they “truly need.”

My clients want to understand, and extend their influence over the buying patterns of their customers. They have to get very smart. The first urge is to panic and start a whole slew of new efforts.

Budgets being tightened? You need a secret weapon, you need better aim.

Get smart and use the tools we have discussed, to gather a deep understanding of what makes your customers:

Choose you

Buy More From You

Visit You More Often

Visit you before your Competitors

Let you have the LIONS share of the total spend in your sector

Encourage and advocate for you in their circle of influence

You do not know nearly enough about what makes them do what they do, and that leaves you with less INFLUENCE.

You Lose

Knowledge and Influence will be the decider, in the upcoming cage match, as you, yes you! Fight for diminishing spending and shopping dollars.

Time to wake up and get smarter.