Originally published: Mi3, 7 September 2026
Australia’s most “digitally native” generation is ‘mallmaxxing’, but it is bringing the group chat along for the ride. At the Snapchat panel, Snap Inc. ANZ managing director Ryan Ferguson, Chemist Warehouse digital marketing manager Rohan Kohli and QUT consumer behaviour and retail expert Professor Gary Mortimer unpacked, research, and insights into how Gen Z’s purchase journey begins in the group chat to in-store experience and private peer validation, forcing marketers and retailers to rethink where influence happens, how they earn trust and what actually secures the sale.
Gen Z’s shopping is no longer a transaction; it’s a social moment. It’s an experience that they’re chasing. It’s peer-led, and it’s lived across both online and in-store.
— Ryan Ferguson, Snap Inc. ANZ managing director
Gen Z has blown up the marketing funnel and moved its most decisive moment somewhere brands and marketers cannot see: their private chats.
Fresh Snapchat-commissioned research spanning more than 2,000 Australians suggests this already “messy” path to purchase is becoming “more social than ever”. Some 77 per cent of Gen Z Australians typically discover products online before buying them in-store.
The same proportion share fitting-room photos or videos with friends before purchasing, while 64 per cent say a positive group-chat response has prompted them to buy in-store.
‘Gen Z is going to hold retail on its shoulders’
An additional Pureprofile study underpinning the findings surveyed 2,007 Australian consumers aged 16 to 80, including an oversample of 1,025 Gen Z respondents aged 16 to 29. It revealed that 44 per cent of Gen Z had increased their visits to physical stores over the previous 12 months, the highest proportion of any generation and nearly twice the national average.
An equal 44 per cent said they were spending more in-store, compared with 33 per cent of Millennials, 21 per cent of Gen X and 29 per cent of Baby Boomers.
But Gen Z is not returning to stores simply to tap the card. Some 76 per cent said physical retail creates memories that online shopping cannot replicate, while 39 per cent visit shopping centres specifically to spend time with friends.
