So, retail marketers are racking their brains to figure out how to win over this most influential consumer segment.
For instance, Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd has tied up with department store chain Intime Retail Group Co. The partnership has reportedly given the e-commerce giant access to Intime's inventory and allowed its online customers to pick up orders from physical stores.
Other retailers are also adopting similar strategies.
Shanghai Malianghang (Hong Kong) Design Co Ltd, a three-year-old custom-made jewelry company that started online, opened the first retail store in Shanghai last year and planned to open up to 30 stores nationwide within two to three years.
Company CEO Bill Hu, a post-'90s person who manages a cohort of millennial staff, believes consumers should be able to "feel the products", and that it is essential for his customers to experience on their own how to use 3-D printing technology to make custom jewelry.
"At a time when winning customers online has become costlier, it is particularly important for online retailers to get the offline side up to standard," Hu said.
For its part, the Chinese government is also determined to strengthen online and offline integration in retail.
Under a guideline promulgated in late November, the central government urged local governments to help business to improve the layout of physical shops, reduce rent and ease restrictive terms about decoration and remodeling, in an effort to catalyze a "real circulation revolution" in the sector, according to Vice-Minister of Commerce Fang Aiqing.
CBRE Research said the retail industry would do well to promote experience-based elements of shopping and focus on providing an environment for visitors to socialize and relax.
Retail is not the only economic segment that is changing in response to millennials' needs. Travel, catering, entertainment and the like are fast adapting to the trend.
In an email, Yan Xuan, president of Nielsen Greater China, said automobile retailers should start to think about how many seats they would install in their showrooms for visiting prospective customers and what unique elements would the products include in their design to satisfy the needs of the younger generation.
Similarly, retailers of baby and maternal products should start thinking strategies to retain young mums, he said.
The growing number of millennials, according to Yan, indicates that the outlook for China's future domestic consumption would continue to be optimistic. "The young generation prefer to buy more than basic consumer goods, and they are willing to foot the bills related to their interests and dreams. This is expected to further drive domestic consumption," said Yan.
In its recent whitepaper The Chinese Consumer in 2030, the Economist Intelligence Unit said the new-age consumer has, well, come of age, with consumption driving economic growth, which is projected at an annual 5.5 percent between 2016 and 2030, eventually accounting for 50 percent of the world's second largest economy.
China is expected to become the world's largest consumer market in the next two to three years, said the Ministry of Commerce spokesman Sun Jiwen at a news conference in mid February.
That trend is in line with China's commitment to make economic growth more sustainable by making it more consumption-driven rather than investment- or export-based.
