A new study was recently released by the Euro RSCG Worldwide PR firm titled The Teenage Girl as Consumer and Communicator. The report, as discussed on Marketing Charts, revealed key findings of the shopping habits of teenage girls.

The most surprising statistics in this report have to do with the fact that teen girls are very careful spenders when it comes to shopping. The paper, which was based on a survey conducted in November, 2009 by MicroDialogue, revealed that teen girls spend more than $200 billion annually at retail establisments. But the report shows that more than 60% of girls wait for items to go on sale before they make their purchase, and 77% are more likely to make a purchase if the item is on sale. Furthermore, the study shows that when teen girls shop with their sister or one best friend they will spend 23% more compared to when they shop with two or more friends. And, wen a teen girl is shopping with a boy she will spend a mere 43% of what she will spend with her sister or best friend.

The study also looked at the biggest fashion influences for teen girls. 59% say that they are most interested in maintaining a unique personal style, while only 30% say that they are more interested in following the same fashion trends as their peers. In addition, 43% are most influenced by celebrities and 26% are most influenced by “other cool girls.”

While 78% of teen girls use social media to keep in touch with friends, they apparently prefer to use other means to conduct shopping research. When teen girls find out about a sale at their favorite store, 65% say they want to share the news with their friends, while 57% say they do the same upon discovering a new trend. Also, 80% prefer texting and phone calls compared to broadcasting on sites such as Facebook or Twitter. E-mail lists are also widely used in order to find out about hot deals. 40% say they sign up on e-mail lists for their favorite brands while 28% only browse and subscribe to basic newsletters for pertinent information.

According to The Nielsen Company, females age 15-32 are the most prone to use social media to alert their peers of deals and sales events. Marketers should be aware that these women will often text and tweet in real-time about the deals they are seeing at the time. Lucky retailers will sometimes even get YouTube video coverage from a customer who has a helpful employee experience.

via Marketing Charts