Since its inception, Jeff Bezos has been playing the long game at Amazon. He put everyone on notice in his first shareholder letter in 1997: “We believe that a fundamental measure of our success will be shareholder value we create over the long term. We choose to prioritize growth.”

Profits took a back seat to growth and early on he took a lot of flak about it, as when Forrester Research analyst George Colony called the company “Amazon. Toast.”

The winning strategy as laid out in that first letter and followed ever since is “customer obsession.”

At the time of Amazon’s founding, the oldest millennials were only 16 years of age and Bezos knew they were the target customer on whom his long-range vision for Amazon depended.

Now millennials are between 25 and 40 years of age and just at the lifestage when consumer incomes and spending begin to peak. Boomers, now 57 to 76 years, are going in the opposite direction with income and spending inevitably dropping as they reach retirement age.

Today Bezos’ plan to dominate as the online destination of choice has been realized, most especially among the millennial cohort with its growing spending power.

A new study from investment firm Cowen reports over 60 percent of millennial consumers say Amazon is their most preferred shopping channel — bar none. It doesn’t just lead as a destination of choice against other brands or retailers’ websites, but it’s the hands-down favorite over physical stores as well, with only about one-fourth preferring the in-store experience.

And not only is Amazon the favored place for millennials to shop, but it also beats Google as the place where they start their online shopping searches and research for planned purchases, even if they end up buying at some other place. Amazon’s hold on the even younger Gen Z customer is equally as strong, but that is a subject for another day.

To get on the scoreboard against Amazon, brands need to gain consumer awareness to become a destination people will remember and go to. It comes down to effective marketing so that a brand can reach and draw in the best customer prospects. That means marketing to millennials, who given their position in the consumer lifecycle, are no longer the up-and-comers but the here-and-now best customer prospect for brands.

Meet the HENRYs breaks new ground by uncovering a new target consumer--Millennials with money.

It's a segment of the largest generation of Americans with more discretionary income than the rest of the cohort today and poised to acquire more money in the future.

These are the millennials that matter most to brands today and tomorrow

For the foreseeable future, millennial HENRYs (High Earners Not Rich Yet) will be the consumers that every brand manager, marketer and retail executive will need to know well.

This subset of the largest generation of Americans, earns between $100K and $250K–the income cohort that accounts for 40 percent of all household spending. Most important, however, these are the consumers who are on track to become the ultra-affluent ($250K +) of the future.

This forward-looking book examines trends and profiles emerging disruptive brands that millennial HENRYs are drawn to, and explains how many of these innovative brands are setting themselves apart from the traditional top-tier luxury brands.

It takes you on a deep-dive into the steps the smartest of the traditional luxury brands and retailers are taking to keep up with a new generation of consumers who are anything but traditional in their approach to luxury spending.

Everyone has heard the adage, “The bigger the challenges, the greater the opportunity,” but often the reverse is true too: The bigger the opportunity, the greater the challenges. Both apply for home brands that aim to grow in the U.S. consumer market.“

Here are the five biggest challenges that every home furnishings brand faces entering or expanding in the U.S. market, whether selling through brick-and-mortar retail, B2C e-commerce or through the design trade.

While most businesses are entranced by the growth opportunities in China – 1.4 billion people with GDP growth averaging ~9% per year since 1980 – the U.S. market is far larger in market size yet with only one-fourth the total number of consumers – 328 million people living in 138 million U.S. households. The U.S. economy leads the world, $21.4 trillion as compared with $14.3 trillion in China, according to The World Bank.

In reality, China may be the world’s biggest producer, but the U.S. is the biggest consumer market.

Further, the U.S. is where more of the world’s wealth resides. There are 20.6 million U.S. millionaires, more than the five next largest countries combined, including China’s 2.3 million millionaires.

As for the home furnishings market, Americans spent $380.7 billion in 2020 on goods for their home, including $238.8 billion on furniture and furnishings alone. Add to that the $90.4 billion spent on home services, and the total market opportunity in the U.S. is rapidly approaching a half-trillion dollars.