Issue #113: Breaking Down Gen Alpha’s Spending Power

Move over Gen Z. There is a new generation in town, and they are starting to be more involved in commerce. Generation Alpha, which repesents people born from 2010-2024, putting them roughly at ages 2 to 17. As of March 2026, this group had surpassed $100B in spending power. A far cry from Gen Z’s $1.6T in current spending power, but still nothing to sniff at, and it is going to keep growing. For brands and retailers, the time to start thinking about Generation Alpha is now. The first major wave of Gen Alpha will be graduating high school next spring. Perfect timing, as PWC just published a fascinating study backed by survey data from 1,000 Gen Alpha kids.

I pulled out some of the most interesting statistics for me from the report below.

What statistics underpin who they are?

What are they doing with their time?

What categories are they buying?

Some really fascinating insights. What really stands out to me is how the purchase habits are being formed long before they can make their own purchasing decisions. Often, this choice is being passed down from their parents, who are typically Millennials or Gen Z. Just look at the resurgence of popularity with Pokémon recently to look at the powerful combination of selling to Gen Alpha and their parents. On the CPG side, another example is Snack Buddies, a better-for-you Little Bite from the founders of Yasso. Something kids and parents can enjoy together. Coming out of this data, I think that is the major takeaway for brands and retailers. Don’t just target one group or the other, build products that can be enjoyed by both! It is so hard to determine who is actually driving the purchase in most cases, so get both to be excited about it.

Before the rise in AI, Google had a major dominance in search. According to some estimates, in 2020, it held a 90% market share. Plenty of commerce was facilitated through this process, but unlike its dominance in search, Google Shopping never took off. Although, to be fair, no shopping tool besides search and individual marketplaces really took off.

However, we have to put that aside, we are in the era of agentic commerce now! After announcing teasers earlier this year, the universal shopping cart finally launched from Google. An agentic version of Google Shopping. You can use rich natural language to find items. You can save products, track prices, and get alerts on those prices. The cart can also process data on your payment methods to recommend which one to utilize, a very fascinating thing to watch in the era of BNPL and pointsmaxxing. Finally, of course, you can route all this through Google Pay. In an era where customers are more and more cognizant of value, these are exactly the types of features people are looking for. It will be interesting to see how these types of products, from Google and others, bridge the gap to agentic commerce.

Ben Azelart is a 24-year-old YouTuber known for the types of content Mr. Beast has popularized: prank videos and money challenges. Like many celebrities and creators, he wanted to capitalize on his fame to launch a CPG product. Ben went out and teamed up with Shaun Neff, who rose to fame with his NEFF clothing brand. More recently, Neff has been building celebrity brands. He helped launch Florence by Mills with Millie Bobby Brown, Moon Oralcare with Kendall Jenner, and BEIS by Shay Mitchell. The product they developed was Backflip, a star-shaped cereal with 6g of protein per serving, less sugar than the category average, and free from synthetic dyes. Starting in July, they launched exclusively in Target. This past week, data around the first 60 days has been making its rounds:

Many people are rightly celebrating their success; however, when I saw those numbers, the new-to-category caught my eye. How did Target have so few cereal buyers overlap with Backflip? Target has been pushing further into grocery, which definitely makes sense, but I am shocked to see this brand was so incremental to the cereal category. Certainly interesting to monitor as they push further into grocery.

For the past couple of years, the lines between different meal occasions have been blurring. Traditionally, you had restaurants and grocery stores, both serving very specific occasions. Now, they are blending together. You can buy your favorite Carbone pasta sauce at the restaurant with a full meal or at the store in a jar. This week, the line blurred even further, with Major Food Group, the restaurant group behind restaurants like Carbone, investing in a new grocery store. Wilder Market & Kitchen is opening in Miami this fall with a focus on sustainability and health. Major Food Group came in as a founding investor and strategic advisor. The 8,000-square-foot location will be part grocery store, part coffee shop, part restaurant. These types of grocery stores have been popping up more frequently, like Happier Grocery in NYC, as customers seek a new model of the grocery store. What makes this one particularly interesting is the presence of Major Food Group. The line between different meal occasions continues to blur!

Live shopping has been popular in Asia for a while now, but has only recently grown in popularity in the United States. For those who haven’t participated yet, a person will video themselves live about a product or products, and viewers can easily ask questions or purchase the items. One of the largest platforms in the United States to facilitate this interaction is Whatnot, which is on pace to do over $15B GMV this year and is valued at over $20B. They released a trend report, and I wanted to share some of my favorites:

Blu Dot used Roku Ads Manager to drive incredible results for its furniture sales event. Its strategy hinged on custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.

“Roku has been a top performer,” said Blu Dot’s Claire Folkestad. “We have seen…CPMs lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”

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