• New York Times, Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12 PM

Marketers are beginning to realize that the Internet is not just for kids. While it was true that older consumers were initially skeptical about making purchases on the Internet during the medium's first commercial push several years ago, they are now much more comfortable doing so. And they have a considerable amount of money to spend, research shows. "This group has been kind of overlooked until now," said Heather Dougherty, an analyst with Nielsen/NetRatings, an online consultancy. "But the older boomers are far from newbies at this point. We're not talking about people who are 100 years old and haven't seen a computer." She said a recent Nielsen survey found that 27.4 million people age 55 and older bought something online in the last six months, compared with about 26 million a year ago. By contrast, the number of adults who bought something online in the last year actually dropped, to 107.4 million from 112 million. The most popular categories among this group are clothing, shoes, flowers, gifts, and travel, and many marketers in those arenas are adjusting their marketing strategies accordingly. Dougherty said marketers traditionally target 18-to-34-year-olds because they believe buying preferences are sealed during this span. But she disagrees. "To assume someone at 35 has made all their decisions about brands for the rest of their lives is utterly ridiculous," she said. "A lot of companies have an antiquated way of looking at older people, which makes little sense when you look at how much more disposable income they have now. "

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