What Does Personalization Mean In-Store?

Source: Publitas

I have seen a lot of panels lately focused on the importance of personalization in retail. And for good reason. 71% of global consumers expect retailers to deliver personalized communications and half experience frustration at irrelevant communications. That contrasts with 73% of marketers who state that they excel at personalization – but only 34% of consumers agree. Clearly, brands are falling short of consumeR expectations despite their bravado.

For the last couple sessions, I have always raised my hand and asked the same question. “What does personalization mean for physical retail where 85% of transactions occur?” The answers to date have been uninspiring. “Sales associates provide personalization,” is the most common.

With all the focus on personalization, shouldn’t we be looking harder at making the experience better in brick-and-mortar where 85% of transactions occur?

In-Store Personalization By Demographic – The New Bar For In-Store Digital Signage

Source: Raydiant

One area that is rapidly expanding is the ability to use computer vision to determine demographics of shoppers. This does not have the same privacy concerns as identity using facial recognition, because all that is stored typically is age, demographic, sentiment, dwell and gaze. If you think about it, it’s much less than what’s captured in your “anonymous” visit to any website. And because the data is identity driven and the video isn’t captured in the cloud, it’s GDPR and CCPA compliant.

I have been particularly impressed with Raydiant’s solution based on the acquisition of Sightcorp. It’s incredibly powerful. Not only will you be able to message by demographic, which we have seen to have a large impact on driving shopper behavior at Perch, but also you can A-B and test creative based on success criteria like sentiment (i.e. did they smile when they saw it), dwell time and gaze time. This is a game changer for data-driven organizations who look to learn how to personalize messages in-store based on real-world success criteria and will quickly be table stakes in the meteoric rise of retail media networks (see our research on RMNs in this webinar video or you can ). Of course, sales and product interaction would be that next step…

In-Store Personalization By Product Engagement – Instrumenting And Reacting To The “Clicks” In Store

This is of course where Perch has been focused. Our lift-and-learn platform can provide the right product message at the right time to drive conversion. The moment someone touches a product, Perch wakes up and tells the shopper about the product and provides the opportunity to advertise complimentary products just like search ads in retail media networks.

This the ultimate personalization of the shopper experience, because shopping is fundamentally about connecting people and products. By providing the same product information we demand online (videos, ratings and reviews, complimentary products, etc.) Perch sees 87% sales lift on average. And our lift-and-learn uses computer vision so you don’t have to wait until all the products are tagged with RFID.

In Store Personalization By Integrating Mobile Into The Physical Shopper Experience

Source: Apptopia

In grocery there is an intense focus on couponing and loyalty apps to create a unified view of customer purchasing and drive mobile app adoption. Mobile app adoption is indeed up, but you don’t see them as fully integrated into the shopper experience. This is because of low penetration (although it’s getting better) and because mobile phones are clunky. They aren’t shelf aware and integrated into physical shopper journeys. Apps should use category awareness through beacons or NFC to know where I am in the store and personalize my shopping and loyalty opportunities. They should help shoppers with wayfinding and product discovery.

Electronic shelf labels which are beginning to see adoption in the US can provide QR codes to link to pricing and product information. And mobile can be integrated into payment and checkout options that are more convenient. Best Buy recently announced a new small format store that embodies some of these core utilities, shifting the model to more of a showrooming experience like an Apple store. This allows smaller store formats to create better product discovery experiences.

In Store Personalization – Putting Demographic, Product Engagement And Mobile All Together

Integrate Product Level Coupons With Lift-And-Learn To Drive Mobile Loyalty Downloads

In-store digital combined with AI and IoT intelligence and mobile integration can create a personalized in-store shopper experience. Digital screens that are product aware should show coupons for products as you pick them up, driving mobile app downloads and adoption.

Integrate Virtual Try On And Product Discovery Tools In-Store

Tools such as virtual try-on should promote the apps to use those tools when shoppers leave the store. Virtual try on apps have been widely adopted in beauty, yet they are rarely used in store, despite the fact that they drive 40% sales liFt, and 25% conversion to email or mobile signup which we proved with Covergirl.

We’ve been very effective in bringing advanced product discovery tools in store such as Neutrogena Skin360 with Johnson&Johnson and CVS. A front-facing camera scans your face and recommends products based on skin conditions like wrinkles or sunspots. The digital screen helps shoppers find the products on the shelf and gets them to download the CVS app powered by Skin360 to continue using the app online and hook into CVS Carepass rewards.

Use Engagement Data To Continually Improve The In-Store Experience And Personalization

We have the tools and platforms to make in-store personalization a reality – and now with AI and IoT we have the data to manage impact across the entire marketing funnel and segment by audience. Which content appeals to which demographic and drives dwell time? Which content gets customers to pick up a product? When they pickup a product, what content drives conversion or gets them to add a product to the basket? “Data is the new oil,” they say. Well, stores have been latent oil fields of data that are just being excavated. It will be amazing what we will learn by applying these techniques and gathering data in-store.

And thus in-store personalization may be the biggest in-store experience revolution in front of us. Time to ask the question “What does in-store personalization mean to you?”