The personalisation of the high-street shopping experience is vital to ensure the future growth of bricks-and-mortar stores.

In a hugely competitive landscape where more often than not price is king, the fight is well and truly on to provide shoppers with a uniquely personal experience that will encourage them to return time and time again.

In a brand new interactive guide published today, Retail Week and Current – Powered by GE – have investigated the technologies best placed to aid retailers in effectively personalising their in-store experience for consumers.

Online shopping is already well personalised on every platform – including mobile phones – but the in-store experience is yet to be effectively adapted for each individual.

Catering to the shopping experience

The focus is now turning towards how to enhance the in-store experience for customers by providing a personalised shopping journey, but the only conceivable way to achieve this is to unravel a single view of the customer.

Over the past few years retailers have been attempting to create this unified view of the customer across all platforms, which will give them the ability to analyse past behaviour in order to better target and personalise future interaction.

“The key thing about personalisation is data,” says the IT and ecommerce director of one fashion retailer.

“If you haven’t got a reward card or some kind of single view of the customer, then that makes it really hard to personalise.

“It is relatively easy through the digital world because there are various ways of collecting data. But I’m only getting one side of the story online if I’m a retailer – I also need the offline data. [Without] both then I’m not going to give consumers the right experience of the brand.”

“The focus is now turning towards how to enhance the in-store experience for customers by providing a personalised shopping journey”

So how do retailers go about collecting this in-store data, and how do they best provide shoppers with a personalised experience?

Results from an exclusive GE-powered Retail Week and Current survey of 1,000 consumers found that 65% use their phones when out shopping, so there is a clear opportunity here to leverage this trend to create a truly personalised experience across all channels, including in-store.

How it’s done

In order to achieve a single view of the customer and start making cross-channel personalisation a reality, it is now critical for retailers to understand the minutiae of shopper behaviour in-store.

This can be understood via information extracted through a digital infrastructure equipped with the right sensor technology.

The idea is that each sensor can communicate with the shopper’s device of choice, and then send data back to the cloud to create a complete view of each customer.

Some of the key sensor technologies that can be used as part of this infrastructure are:

  • Wi-Fi
  • Bluetooth beacons
  • Visible light communications
  • Audio
  • Video analytics

What shoppers want

It is already apparent that the majority of shoppers utilise their phones when they are out and about, but in which stores do they use them most? It probably won’t surprise you to learn that a whopping 40% of consumers use them mostly in grocery stores.

Clothing shops are the second most popular, with 22% using them in fashion stores, and 16% using them in electrical shops.

When asking respondents about what they use their mobile phone for while shopping, it becomes abundantly clear that price comparison is key.

An astonishing 57% of respondents say they have checked prices on competitors’ websites, a huge rise from the 39% that said they did this when asked the same question 18 months previously.

Of those surveyed, 41% have also sought vouchers and deals on their smartphone while out shopping.

Retailers are using traditional loyalty schemes and mobile technology to communicate with customers

John Lewis loyalty card and mobile technology

“If you haven’t got a reward card or some kind of single view of the customer, then that makes it really hard to personalise,” says one IT and ecommerce director

Meanwhile, further details are important to many, with 42% of respondents using their phone to search for product information and 38% searching for reviews.

With the data demonstrating that consumers are more likely to both visit a store as well as purchase more items if they can leverage some of the key benefits of in-store personalisation, it is no wonder there is such intense endeavour to implement the correct infrastructure for this across the retail sector.

However, it is fair to say that there is absolutely no one-size-fits-all standard, and there are often numerous barriers that need to be overcome to begin successfully moving towards this goal.

Building customer trust

Some consumers still remain cautious about retailers handling their data on location, and of those surveyed 31% say they distrust retailers to handle this information in a responsible and secure manner.

However, at 49%, almost half of shoppers we spoke to say they trust retailers but are somewhat hesitant, and so therefore businesses must build trust with consumers in order to put the mechanics in place to pinpoint an individual’s location and feed through a personalised service.

“I actually think there is a danger of overusing personalisation and communication to the point where they are quite scared”

Digital product director of a department store

One department store digital product director says: “Consumers are worried about their privacy and security. I actually think there is a danger of overusing personalisation and communication to the point where they are quite scared.”

Data security has long been a concern for most retailers and, with the exponential growth of big data and cloud computing services across all industries, this is only likely to become more pivotal.

With other forms of data residing in loyalty schemes and ecommerce applications, most retailers will already have strict data security protocols in place.

In conjunction with these other datasets, in-store behavioural data should be treated with just as much rigour.

Investment in new technology rarely comes without some form of initial capital outlay, which for a few will be the primary concern.

The retail programme boss from one fashion chain adds: “My biggest fear at the moment is that there is a lot of work to do and it requires a significant investment, and in the present climate I’m not sure we’re going to be able to move as fast with it as we want to.”

However, the funding needed for these types of projects doesn’t need to be a deterrent. Many solution providers can offer finance packages that help to alleviate the large capital outlay by offering ongoing payment plans spread across a more acceptable timeframe, and in turn deliver an expedited return on investment.

As in-store personalisation is something of a new phenomenon, it can be difficult to decipher which area of the business it might reside in.

Should it be solely managed by the digital team, or should the store managers have a say? Marketing teams will almost certainly want a look in, as will the finance chiefs holding the purse strings.

But what if we were to suggest that it should not reside solely within one function?

Current’s EMEA enterprise software director Julian Chatwin – which is powered by GE – notes that including functions that might not at first seem like a natural fit could provide a more holistic approach and can often provide greater efficiencies.

It would be remiss to suggest that getting this right will be plain sailing, however if retailers plan, prepare and choose the right partner to embark on this journey with, then they need not be daunted by the various obstacles that must be navigated.

Access the full digital briefing in association with Current, powered by GE, on unlocking in-store personalisation by clicking here.

The guide reveals:

  • The catalyst consumer technologies that will help to drive in-store personalisation
  • What other retailers are doing to achieve in-store personalisation
  • What shoppers really want from personalisation
  • The barriers when it comes to the implementation of in-store personalisation and how to overcome them