Segmentation of the senior market: how do different variable sets discriminate between senior segments?

Senior consumers represent an important portion of the market, and as such, they require an appropriate segmentation to explore the consumption characteristics of the different segments composing this specific market. The present study focuses on how different variable sets impact senior consumers’ segmentation. We apply Wedel and Kmakura segmentation framework and Hagerty’s formulation to assess quantitatively the classification power of many variable sets in terms of six segmentation criteria namely identifiability, responsiveness, substantiality, actionability, accessibility, and stability. Findings from a survey conducted over 427 senior consumers show that the variable sets have different supports for each of the above criteria indicating that some sets should be privileged over others in senior consumers’ segmentation. The paper reports the details of this investigation and provides implications for managerial practice and academic research on senior market segmentation.