The software practice of analyzing user clicks can be applied to any business. For retail, identify your top-spending customers and reverse-engineer their entire journey, from their first store visit to their big purchase. This helps find common patterns—like interacting with a specific employee—that can be replicated for all customers.
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AI's most significant impact is not just campaign optimization but its ability to break down data silos. By combining loyalty, e-commerce, and in-store interaction data, retailers can create a holistic customer view, enabling truly adaptive and intelligent marketing across all channels.
Complex fields like shopper psychology, which often seem instinctive and chaotic, can be decoded and applied effectively by using a structured framework. This approach transforms vague feelings into concrete, understandable principles for analysis and action, removing guesswork from understanding consumer behavior.
Sephora combats intense competition by applying a "game of inches" philosophy to its physical retail space. Every section, from teen-focused fragrance displays to strategically placed checkout-line minis, is optimized to sell. This meticulous space utilization creates a highly profitable, frictionless customer experience without any "wasted" space.
When troubleshooting variable retail sell-through, the first step isn't to speculate on solutions. Instead, gather raw data by having fans send photos of in-store product placements from various locations. This information-first approach prevents premature and potentially flawed strategy decisions.
As software commoditizes, the buying experience itself becomes a key differentiator. Map the entire customer journey, from awareness to renewal, and design unique, valuable interactions at each stage. This shifts the focus from transactional selling to creating a memorable, human-centric experience that drives purchasing decisions.
Advanced retailers are moving beyond treating retail media as an ad channel for short-term sales. They integrate it with loyalty programs to deliver personalized value, which strengthens long-term customer relationships and retention, making it a strategic lever for growth.
Proving digital data can fuel offline sales, a Toronto restaurant group that launched e-commerce during the pandemic bridged the online-offline gap. By integrating Shopify data with MailChimp, they used automated welcome and win-back campaigns based on online grocery and wine purchases to successfully drive customers back into their physical restaurants.
Modern marketing relevance requires moving beyond traditional demographic segments. The focus should be on real-time signals of customer intent, like clicks and searches. This reframes the customer from a static identity to a dynamic one, enabling more timely and relevant engagement.
Coterie treats its physical retail presence not just as a sales channel, but as a marketing tool. A well-placed product block acts like a billboard, driving discovery and funneling 10-12% of new customers back to their primary D2C subscription business.
AI uses shopper clickstream and sales data to segment customers and SKUs with precision. This allows brands to offer targeted discounts where needed, maintaining trust by avoiding deceptive practices like shrinkflation and being transparent about necessary price increases on less elastic products.
