Retailers with Multichannel Expertise Make Big Gains as Consumers Shift Habits

Sailthru, the leading personalized marketing automation technology provider for retailers and publishers, released the 3rd annual Retail Personalization Index. Sephora claimed the top spot for the third year in a row, with Nordstrom earning second place. High scoring brands have started to show signs of true multi-channel personalization that is orchestrated to suit the customer. The Retail Personalization Index is derived from a survey of 1,500 consumers; it compares feedback about cross-channel customer experiences against data such as net promoter score and repeat purchase rate. From this insight, it’s clear that consumers report higher satisfaction and are more likely to report purchasing again from brands with engaging, personalized experiences that make shopping easy and enjoyable across all channels.

“Customers are highly engaged on mobile and email, not just on site and in store. The brands that performed best in the Retail Personalization Index do two things right. They deliver deep personalization on individual channels. And they deliver experiences between channels that keep customers coming back,” said Jason Grunberg, VP of Marketing at Sailthru. “Today, the customer controls their shopping experience, and that’s why their feedback drives this research.”

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Large big box brands received high customer scores for likelihood to buy, but so did many other brands such as Nike, Adidas, and Etsy. Customers embrace a variety of online, bricks and mortar, big and small brands, as long as the shopping experience is rewarding. Across the brands evaluated, some clear trends in capabilities separated the best performers from the rest.

When comparing the top 25 to those that did not make the top 100 Sailthru found:

• On site, 88% of the top 25 brands had personalized recommendations vs. only 21% of brands that did not rank in the index

• On email, 96% of the top 25 brands provided personalized product recommendations compared to 23% of unranked brands.

• On mobile, 84% of the top 25 brands use push notifications vs. 10% of brands not in the top 100

Many leading scorers such as Sephora, The Home Depot, and Urban Outfitters performed particularly well on mobile and email channels, where Amazon scored poorly. Many online brands such as Thrive Market and Boxed also showed multichannel sophistication that beat Amazon. In particular, retailers with good mobile personalization climbed the rankings, which reflects changing consumer habits, with global m-commerce transactions set to overtake e-commerce transactions this year.

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Several rankings of note:

• Sephora, the beauty retailer, secured the top rank for the third year in a row

• Nordstrom jumped to second place with an improvement in mobile score

• Walmart placed 25, with a strong website score, but average scores on other channels despite recent technology investments

• Amazon placed 57, with a strong website score, but lower scores on other channels

“The retailers that stood out this year and those that truly understand their customers’ behaviors and preferences and invest in personalization that reflects that understanding,” said Cassie Young, Chief Customer Officer at CM Group. “Consumers have made the move to mobile, and the retailers that have made that transition alongside them successfully lead the pack.”

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