Abacus Direct conducted a study to investigate how buying from catalogs varies among households of different ages. Clothes claim the lion's share of catalog spending among all households, but the type of clothes bought differs. For households aged 25 to 54, women's and men's combined apparel is the largest category. But among older households, men and women are more likely to buy their clothing from gender-specific catalogs. Women's apparel and accessories is the top category for housholds aged 55 and older.
Several categories increase in prominence with older buyers.
Likewise, men's-only purchases increase from 2 percent of catalog buys for the younger group to nearly 6 percent for seniors. Other categories lose prominence with older households. And purchases of computer hardware and software drop from 5 percent among younger households to less than 2 percent for the oldest ones.