The present retail industry is dependent on numerous factors. Unfortunately, we are witnessing great struggles for both the domestic and foreign retail companies. Cumbersome companies, failing to heed the market demands and changes can no longer function. Their time has passed, with new, younger companies entering the market, ones responsive to the newly arisen needs. In sharp contrast with the previous business tactics and strategies, with the dominating position of retail companies guaranteed by offering bulk products, low prices and huge assortment, the situation has changed significantly. The retail companies need to understand customer behaviour and buyer motivation. Lifestyle, digitization, urbanisation and other life shifts influence the changing strategies of retail’s top management. A single generation imposed itself on the entire retail industry, significantly altering the buyer’s decision process and behaviour, thus prompting the retail companies into change. This generation is called the millennials, people born between mid-1980’s and early 2000’s. Their influence is evident in all the facets of life, with the brunt of the impact yet to follow. It is predicted that the millenials will become the biggest consumers in history, therefore the interest in them and their preferences is quite understandable, especially for the retail companies and the manufacturers. The goal of this paper is to research the extent of the millenials’ influence on the retail companies and their future business strategies, as well as the overall impact on lifestyles held by the rest of the populace. Throughout the paper, previous research results will be analysed and the lifestyle of the millennials scrutinized. General opinion with regard to millennials is that they are highly educated, quite career-driven and ambitious, politically active and, which is most important for the paper, loyal to a particular brand. The term itself was coined in the U.S., however, their European counterparts have arisen, with similar characteristics and a distinctiveness which will be carefully examined in the paper. The previous research dealing with the millenials indicates they have a unique lifestyle, one quite differing from those of previous generations, including a particular outlook on life and a peculiar buying decision processes. The marketing practice that once was, simply does not suffice when millennials are concerned, with the classic advertising campaigns using magazines and TV simply not reaching this particular demographic. The millennials tend to believe in real experiences of previous users, something easily verifiable via Internet and social networks. It was this manner of operating that ushered a whole array of new business concepts, which toppled and changed entire industries. The research dealing with the millennials’ lifestyle indicates that they are a force to be reckoned with and adapting a new business style is a necessity. The retail companies must not fall in the trap of the increasingly eldering populace and make business plans based on solely that particular demographic, a state of affairs especially indicative of Europe. Unfortunately, the economic influence of retail companies diminishes as time passes, with millennials simultaneously experiencing the increase of purchasing power with each passing year. The importance of this paper is in its suggestive influence, a proposition for the retail companies to heed the millennial demographic, scrutinising their behavioural patterns and preferences, the only way retail companies can reasonably expect a long-term growth and survival on the unstable retail market.