Borderless retail

A wave of customers are returning to in-store shopping, but they come with new expectations

The pandemic taught consumers that ecommerce could meet many of their needs, but months of enforced isolation have made people eager to go shopping again. Foot traffic is returning, and those customers expect the convenience of ecommerce to follow them in-store. Enter the age of borderless retail.

The transition is happening fast, and brands and retailers need to know how to navigate it. The race to gain market share is heating up. Those who act fastest will be rewarded.

Success starts with a shift in mindset. Retailers should aim to personalise service across every touch point, online and offline, for a seamless shopping experience.

Borderless strategy

What value do people expect from your brand? How will you measure success? What are the use cases that you need to reach your goals? Before transforming operations and technology, you need to set the course with a clear and simple framework for the customer behaviours you want to drive, then map the implications across all touchpoints.

Borderless data

Personalisation depends on your knowledge of your customers, and that means customer data. First-party data collected on owned touchpoints will become critical to your brand. When a customer visits you online, you will know how they browse and what content they consume. Then you can activate based on what you’ve learned. Owned touchpoints are also where you can implement an identity management system to ensure that the data you collect is attributed to a customer profile that you manage.

Collecting first-party data along the journey as customers use different devices or interact with different touch points will require some form of identity and authentication system, such as a login. It will also require a customer data platform or CDP software that combines data from across various touchpoints and devices to create a centralised database of your customers.

A future-proof retail innovation strategy depends on making a fair offer to people that is clear about what data you will collect and what value customers will get in return. We can provide the technology for you to collect first-party data on owned touchpoints, build a customer data platform, and create unified customer profiles so every team is working with the same information.

Borderless experience

Retailers need nimble operations and communications to capitalise on the potential advantages that customer data provides. You will need integrated online and offline customer service, merchandising, content optimisation and relationship management. Is such a massive infrastructure project within reach with the resources you have available? Absolutely.

 

For more insights and analysis, download Ogilvy’s Borderless Retail report