Hyperpersonalised Retail
Here’s an article I wrote for Stockland Retail November Newsletter:
In the analogue 20th century we ventured out into the world to discover, to buy and to engage.
In the digital 21st century the world comes to us through a myriad of always-on mobile devices that constantly scour, interpret and filter what’s around us, searching for relevance and opportunity and bringing it back to us in the palm of our hand.
Retail has borne the brunt of this seismic shift and where once physical and tangible were paramount, connected and digital are now equal partners.
Forrester predicts that by 2016, 44% of all retail sales will be influenced by connected retail – a shopping environment that encourages and provides an enhanced link between consumers, their devices and data and seeks to minimise the differences between their bricks and mortar and digital offerings.
This new world of hyperpersonalisation, precision retailing or me-tailing recognises that the consumers mobile device is increasingly at the centre of any retail interaction as it fulfills its mission to learn about your store, your offerings and interpret this generic raw data into custom-made consumer centric knowledge.
British luxury fashion retailer Burberry‘s Regent Street store has designed their new store to mimic the online experience and houses the world’s largest retail screen that can playfully show a rain storm or digitally transport the store to anywhere on the planet, has 550 hidden speakers to fully immerse the shopper with and a set of change room screens that can show the garment being tried on by the shopper walking on the catwalk before turning itself into a traditional mirror, all aimed at enhancing the customer experience, product discovery and cross selling.
John Lewis’s full line flexible format department store in Exeter brings digital and physical retailing together by physically merchandising more stock variety in a smaller space and digitally encouraging the customer to use either their own or in-store technology to engage and purchase.
Marks and Spencer and Tesco have both recently experimented with customer engagement through interactive kiosks and targeted in store offerings activated online.
Neiman Marcus recognises digital as an opportunity, not a threat and has developed an in store location positioning app to ensure every customer can find and be digitally guided to exactly what they want in-store with a minimum of fuss and effort.
Brazilian retailer C&A uses Facebook likes on their coat hangers to bring the online social world directly to their garments.
Nike offers hyperpersonalisation both in store and digitally by allowing customers to customise and design their own shoes.
Tommy Hilfiger and Adidas use interactive store windows and window displays to spark store and brand discovery.
Bloomingdales provides flat screens that allow passersby to see themselves digitally wearing the latest sunglasses and then go in store to purchase, or print off a picture for later purchase.
These are trends not of technology, but of people using technology.
They are deliberate retail strategy enablers that focus on the customer and not the device and that stimulate the trinity of retail perfection – improved service delivery, personalised customer experience and enhanced brand engagement.
They are digital tools to be used alongside traditional retail tools and when placed in the hands of great sales people allow them to reach beyond their physical four walls to find stock at alternate branches, to share knowledge, show digital product beyond those physically merchandised, to research with and on behalf of customers, to transact and complete sales and to turn opaque physical walls into transparent digital retail environments that extend the boundaries of retail possibilities and profitability.
]]>
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is hyperpersonalisation in retail and how does it differ from conventional targeting?
Hyperpersonalisation moves beyond demographic and behavioural segmentation to individual-level relevance: product recommendations, pricing, communications, and store experiences designed for a specific person’s context, preferences, and moment. It differs from conventional targeting in that it operates at the individual level using real-time data rather than at the segment level using historical averages. The technology to deliver this — machine learning recommendation engines, real-time data integration, dynamic content generation — has become commercially accessible since 2013.
Q: How has personalisation technology transformed retail since 2013?
The retail personalisation transformation since 2013 is most visible in: e-commerce recommendation engines (Amazon’s ‘customers also bought’ driving an estimated 35% of revenue); email and app marketing moving from batch-and-blast to behavioural trigger sequences; dynamic pricing adjusting in real time to demand, inventory, and individual purchase history; and loyalty programmes evolving from points accumulation to genuine behaviour-based personalisation. The gap between digital and physical retail personalisation remains significant — physical retail has been slower to implement the sensor and data infrastructure needed for in-store individualisation.
Q: What are the trust and privacy implications of hyperpersonalised retail?
The trust implications are significant: consumers value personalisation when it feels helpful and privacy-respecting, and resent it when it feels surveillance-based or manipulative. The distinction often comes down to whether the personalisation uses data the consumer knowingly provided (their purchase history, stated preferences) or data they did not know was being collected (location tracking, inferred psychology). Retailers that build personalisation on transparent, consensual data relationships consistently achieve higher trust and longer customer lifetime value than those that extract maximum data without explicit consent.
Q: How can I book Morris Misel for a retail, consumer behaviour, or digital commerce keynote?
Visit morrismisel.com/retail or contact the team at morrismisel.com/event-organisers.
Here’s an article I wrote for Stockland Retail November Newsletter: In the analogue 20th century we ventured out into the world to discover, to buy and to engage. In the digital 21st century the world comes to us through a myriad of always-on mobile devices that constantly scour,.
When signals like Hyperpersonalised Retail emerge, organisations that engage early have the advantage of choosing their response rather than reacting to events. That gap between those who prepared and those who did not is where competitive positioning is actually made or lost.
The most important question is not whether Hyperpersonalised Retail will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
