The science of shopping : leveraging in-store analytics and shopper marketing in a

Abstract

In-store analytics is a growing phenomenon where new technologies and digital solutions are emerging to help retailers answer a simple question - what is actually happening within their retail environment/s and how are shoppers responding. Despite in-store analytics' strong relevance for retail firms, it yet remains heavily under-studied among scholars. However, the growing number of studies regarding related areas such as localization and behavioral marketing indicate that the phenomenon is on the rise. What is more, the retail landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by an onslaught of omnichannel digital commerce where consumers are increasingly hyper-connected, going in and out of physical and digital contexts, thus changing the way consumers shop and are influenced in retail environments. In response, the current state of shopper marketing has also been flooded with multiple new marketing vehicles available to firms. A major problem, however, is that the model of how shopper marketing works is still more or less a “black box”, and physical retailers lack in-store shopper data to adhere to a more “phygital” (physical+digital) experience. Unlike the online world where eCommerce retailers have the advantage of knowing a lot about what their customers do online to tailor the shopping experience to them in a plethora of ways, physical retailers fall short. In-store analytics can help unlock the “black box” of shopper marketing and enable an unprecedented and accurate view of the retail environment to consumer relationship, including aspects such as customer footfall patterns, visitor profiles, at shelf engagement, and collect granular data points along the instore shopper journey to analyse and predict shopper behavior. This study followed a qualitative research approach, and the empirical findings were obtained via in-depth semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted with thirteen international participants, consisting of shopper researchers and leading digital solution providers. Thematic analysis, interpretation, and analytic generalizing were utilized to analyse the findings of the research. The study reinforces the existing literature to great extent, but also provides new perspectives to the identified factors. The study was concluded as complex and multifaceted; therefore, this stream of research was approached from a holistic view, due to a lack of academic literature available. However, this thesis presents a novel area of study and has extended the existing comprehensions of the subject, and offered managerial implications regarding the focal topic.