By 2030, all 73 million U.S. Boomers will be 65+—and they control the majority of household wealth. So why do so many products, stores, and apps ignore them? In this episode of Marginally Better, Joe Taylor, Jr. breaks down the trillion-dollar gap between who has the money and who businesses design for—spotlighting winners like Best Buy and CVS, common “youngsplaining” mistakes, and simple UX fixes that boost conversions for everyone. If you’re serious about growth, the senior surge isn’t a niche—it’s your biggest opportunity.
Episode Links:
- AARP – Census Data on Baby Boomers
- National Council on Aging – Facts on Older Americans
- Generational Divide in B2B Decision Making
- Debunking Baby Boomer Myths
- Best Buy’s Health Strategy
- Future of Aging at Home SXSW
- Reinventing Care for a Generation
- CVS Health Social Care Network
- CVS Competitors in Senior Living
- CVS Healthy Aging Initiative
- Drugstore Closures Hit Seniors Hardest
- Impact of Font Pairing on UX
- Nielsen Norman Group – Glanceable Fonts
- Font and Interface Research
- Interface Design for Older Adults
- Interaction Design Foundation – Design for All
- Designing for Different Generations
- Cambridge University – Youngsplaining and Digital Ageism
- Preventing Ageism in Design
- ResearchGate – Ageism and Second-Level Digital Divide
- Digital Ageism Research
- Active Agers Driving Post-Pandemic Sales
- Generational Targeting
- Multi-Generational UX
- Interface Design Best Practices
- Ageism and Social Mobility
- Digital Accessibility Strategies
Transcript:
Announcer: From the global headquarters of Johns and Taylor in beautiful New Jersey, it’s Marginally Better. Here’s your host, Joe Taylor, Jr.
Joe Taylor, Jr.: On the show this week, By 2030, every single baby boomer in America will be 65 or older. That’s 73 million people. And they’re not just numerous – they’re wealthy, holding the majority of this country’s disposable income.
Yet walk into most stores, open most apps, or look at most marketing campaigns, and you’d think everyone over 50 had vanished. We’re about to explore the trillion-dollar disconnect between who has the money and who businesses are designing for.
Plus, I’ll tell you about a tech company that discovered seniors were their most profitable customers – once they stopped treating them like digital toddlers.
That’s all coming up after the break on Marginally Better.
Welcome to Marginally Better, a show about business, innovation, and the American economy. I’m Joe Taylor Jr.
There’s a demographic tsunami heading our way, and most businesses are standing on the beach with their backs turned.
According to AARP’s analysis of Census data, we’re approaching an unprecedented moment in American history. By 2030, every baby boomer will be 65 or older. That’s 73 million Americans – more than the entire population of the United Kingdom.
But here’s what makes this more than just a big number. The National Council on Aging reports that Americans over 50 account for 83% of household wealth. Let me say that again – 83% of all household wealth is controlled by people most businesses are actively ignoring.
This isn’t some gradual shift we can adjust to over time. Between 2020 and 2030, the 65-plus population is growing by 18 million. That’s adding a city the size of New York every six months, except this city is full of people with money to spend and businesses that won’t take it.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Research from the Population Reference Bureau demolishes one of marketing’s most persistent myths – that older adults are afraid of technology.
The truth? Boomers adopt new technology when it’s accessible and actually solves their problems. They’re not rejecting your app because they’re scared of smartphones. They’re rejecting it because you made the text too small, the buttons too tiny, and the navigation too complex.
As documented in research about B2B decision-making from Annuitas, boomers still influence or control major purchasing decisions in most companies. These aren’t retirees disconnected from the digital world. They’re CEOs, board members, and senior executives making million-dollar technology purchases while squinting at interfaces designed for 25-year-olds.
Mad Collective’s research on generational targeting reveals the absurdity of current marketing strategies. While boomers control the wealth, brands continue to design primarily for millennials and Gen Z.
Big Drop Inc’s analysis of multi-generational UX shows companies making the same mistakes over and over. They create one message, one design, one experience – usually optimized for younger users – and wonder why their most profitable demographic feels excluded.
The irony is painful. Businesses spend millions chasing younger customers with less disposable income while alienating the generation that actually has money to spend.
Daily SevenFifty’s reporting on the “active ager” market reveals what industry insiders call the silver economy – and it’s worth trillions. Not billions. Trillions.
These aren’t the stereotypical seniors marketers imagine. They’re traveling more, spending on wellness, investing in technology, renovating homes. They’re driving post-pandemic spending in almost every category that matters.
Yet most businesses act like they don’t exist. Or worse, they create patronizing “senior” products that insult the very customers they’re trying to attract.
What we’re witnessing isn’t just bad business. It’s a massive market failure. Companies are literally leaving trillions on the table because they can’t see past their own generational biases.
The businesses that figure this out first won’t just capture market share. They’ll dominate entire industries while their competitors chase customers who won’t have this kind of spending power for decades.
Richard Schulze was 71 years old when he had his epiphany. The founder of Best Buy, who’d built an electronics empire on selling to young early adopters, suddenly realized he’d been missing his best customers.
It was 2012, and Schulze had just returned as chairman after a brief retirement. Best Buy was struggling, losing ground to Amazon, watching customers use their stores as showrooms before buying online. Everyone told him to double down on millennials, to out-tech the tech companies.
Instead, Schulze looked at the data and saw something everyone else missed.
According to Senior Housing News’s reporting, what Schulze discovered was that Best Buy’s most profitable service wasn’t selling the latest gadgets to 20-somethings. It was Geek Squad visits to seniors’ homes.
These customers weren’t just buying a TV. They were buying installation, setup, tutorials, ongoing support. The lifetime value of a senior customer who trusted Best Buy was multiples higher than a young customer who price-compared everything online.
This led to a radical experiment: Geek Squad for health. As documented by Best Buy’s corporate communications about their SXSW presentation, the company launched programs specifically designed for aging at home. Not patronizing “senior services,” but sophisticated technology solutions for people who happened to be older.
They trained Geek Squad agents in health technology. They partnered with health systems. They created “Best Buy Health” – bringing the same expertise they used for home theaters to home health monitoring.
The result? A entirely new revenue stream worth hundreds of millions, serving customers their competitors ignored.
Meanwhile, CVS was undergoing its own senior revolution. As detailed in their corporate announcements and reported by Unite Us, CVS stopped thinking of themselves as a pharmacy that happened to serve older customers. They reimagined themselves as a health hub for aging Americans.
They didn’t just fill prescriptions. They created wellness centers integrating pharmacy, primary care, and social services. They built networks connecting medical care with community support. They recognized that for many seniors, the pharmacy visit wasn’t just about medication – it was about connection, support, and navigating an increasingly complex healthcare system.
Drug Store News reports on their Healthy Aging Initiative – $4 million invested not in advertising to seniors, but in actually serving them better.
The competition took notice. Senior Housing News documented how every major pharmacy chain scrambled to copy CVS’s model. But CVS had a head start because they’d stopped seeing seniors as an obligation and started seeing them as an opportunity.
But here’s where the story gets complicated. Even CVS, despite their senior-focused strategy, couldn’t escape economic reality. The New York Times reported on a cruel irony: just as pharmacies were discovering the value of senior customers, economic pressures forced widespread store closures – and CVS was closing stores too.
Between 2021 and 2024, CVS announced plans to close 900 stores – about 10% of their locations. The same company investing millions in senior wellness centers was simultaneously shuttering neighborhood pharmacies that seniors had relied on for decades.
So how did CVS try to square this circle? They claimed they were being strategic about which stores to close, focusing on locations with multiple CVS stores nearby. They offered prescription transfers, home delivery, and transportation vouchers. But for an 85-year-old who’d been going to the same pharmacist for 20 years, a voucher doesn’t replace a relationship.
One pharmacist quoted in the Times coverage described watching regular senior customers cry when told their pharmacy was closing. These weren’t just customers losing a store. They were losing a lifeline.
The difference between CVS and competitors who completely abandoned the senior market? CVS was at least trying to maintain touchpoints. Their remaining stores became more senior-focused, not less. They expanded MinuteClinics in stores that stayed open. They invested in same-day prescription delivery.
But let’s be honest about what this means: CVS discovered seniors were valuable customers, then had to tell many of those same customers their local store was closing anyway. They maintained their competitive advantage not by avoiding closures, but by closing more slowly and thoughtfully than competitors who were simply abandoning entire markets.
It’s a case study in corporate contradiction – simultaneously investing in and divesting from the same demographic. The head start CVS maintained wasn’t about keeping all their stores open. It was about being less bad at abandoning seniors than everyone else.
While CVS was caught between serving and abandoning seniors, other companies found a different path – one that didn’t require choosing between profits and people. Research from Kaarwan, Nielsen Norman Group, and multiple UX studies documented in the National Institutes of Health’s PubMed Central shows that companies making simple design changes saw dramatic improvements in senior engagement.
Larger fonts. Better contrast. Simpler navigation. These weren’t revolutionary innovations. They were basic accessibility improvements that companies had resisted for years, assuming they’d make interfaces “look old.”
ADchitects’ guide to interface design for older adults revealed the truth: these changes didn’t just help seniors. They helped everyone. Parents holding babies while trying to order groceries. Commuters on bumpy trains. Anyone with tired eyes at the end of a long day.
The Interaction Design Foundation’s research on “Design for All” frameworks proved what should have been obvious: inclusive design isn’t charity. It’s good business.
But as some companies improved, others doubled down on discrimination. Cambridge University research on “youngsplaining” – yes, that’s a real academic term now – documented how ageism pervades digital strategy.
“Digital-first” became code for “seniors last.” Companies proudly announced they were closing physical locations and moving everything online, never asking whether their most profitable customers could follow.
The Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society published research showing how this contributes to what they call the “second-level digital divide.” It’s not just about internet access anymore. It’s about whether digital services are even usable if you’re over 60.
SAGE Journals documented the health implications. When telehealth exploded during COVID, seniors who most needed care were least able to access it. Not because they lacked devices, but because healthcare companies designed interfaces that assumed everyone was a digital native.
Which brings us back to Best Buy. While competitors were closing stores and going digital-only, Best Buy did something radical: they kept their stores open and made them more senior-friendly.
They widened aisles. They improved lighting. They trained staff in patience, not just products. They created dedicated shopping hours for seniors who wanted less crowds and more assistance.
The financial results spoke louder than any marketing campaign. Best Buy’s senior-focused initiatives didn’t just succeed – they helped save the company. While Circuit City collapsed and RadioShack disappeared, Best Buy thrived by serving the customers everyone else abandoned.
But here’s the key difference between Best Buy and what would happen with CVS: Best Buy committed fully. They didn’t discover seniors were valuable and then close the stores those seniors needed. They doubled down, keeping physical locations open even as Wall Street pushed them to go digital-only.
Richard Schulze, now in his 80s, had proven a simple truth: The best customers aren’t always the youngest ones. Sometimes they’re the ones with the most experience – and the most money. And sometimes, serving them means resisting the temptation to optimize them away.
Let me tell you about a focus group that changed everything for a major tech company. They’d gathered a group of customers over 65 to test their new app. The session was going poorly – participants struggled with every task, couldn’t find basic features, kept getting lost in the interface.
The product manager, growing frustrated, finally asked: “What would make this easier for you?”
One participant, a retired engineer who’d helped design the guidance system for Apollo missions, looked him straight in the eye and said: “You could start by not assuming I’m an idiot.”
This story, documented in various forms across UX research, captures what Cambridge researchers now call “youngsplaining” – the assumption that older adults need technology explained to them like children.
The research on moralistic judgments in digital media reveals something darker. We don’t just make interfaces hard for seniors to use. We judge them for struggling with interfaces we deliberately made confusing.
A ResearchGate study on ageism and the digital divide found that most “senior-friendly” technology isn’t actually friendly at all. It’s patronizing. Giant buttons with childish icons. Interfaces stripped of features older adults actually want. Products that scream “you’re old and confused” with every design choice.
But here’s what’s fascinating. Research from multiple UX sources shows that every accessibility improvement for seniors makes products better for everyone.
That larger font seniors need? It helps anyone reading in bright sunlight. The simpler navigation? Perfect for anyone multitasking. The clearer button labels? Great for anyone using your product for the first time.
Lifestyle sustainability research documents companies discovering that designing for cognitive-friendly interfaces – originally intended for older users – dramatically improved user satisfaction across all age groups.Design Monks found that interfaces optimized for seniors had 40% fewer support tickets across all demographics. Turns out, clarity isn’t an age issue. It’s a human issue.
Creative Salon’s analysis of ageism and social mobility reveals the hidden cost of our biases. Every business that ignores seniors isn’t just losing customers. They’re paying what researchers call an “ageism tax” – the cost of serving only part of your market.
Training costs skyrocket when you refuse to design intuitive interfaces. Support costs explode when your “digital-first” strategy forces phone calls from confused customers. Market share evaporates when competitors realize your older customers are underserved.
Daily SevenFifty’s research on “active agers” reveals the absurdity of our assumptions. Today’s 70-year-olds aren’t yesterday’s seniors. They’re starting businesses, learning new skills, traveling the world. They’re not slowing down – we’re just not keeping up with them.
One venture capitalist quoted in the research put it perfectly: “We fund 25-year-olds to build products for 25-year-olds, then wonder why we can’t scale beyond a niche market.”
So here’s my challenge to you: Look at your business through 70-year-old eyes. Not patronizing, simplified eyes. Experienced, discriminating, affluent eyes.
Can they read your website without zooming? Can they navigate your store without assistance? Can they use your product without feeling diminished?
Because here’s the truth: By 2030, if you can’t serve customers over 65, you can’t serve the majority of American wealth. And that’s not a demographic trend. That’s a business emergency.
The companies winning the senior surge won’t be the ones that create special “senior” products. They’ll be the ones that create great products that everyone can actually use.
That’s our show for today. Whether you’re designing for boomers or Gen Z, remember: Accessibility isn’t about age. It’s about respect. And respecting the customers with the most money to spend? That’s not just good ethics. It’s good business.
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If you want to get behind-the-scenes notes from me and the rest of the team, go to marginallybettershow.com or follow the link in our show notes.
Marginally Better is a Calufrax radio production. Our producer is Nicole Hubbard with research by Connie Evans.
I’m Joe Taylor, Jr.
