From Forbes on April 27, 2016:
Retailers have become very adept at mining customer transaction files looking for some obscure data point that may help them become more knowledgeable about their customers. However, hidden from these instore shopper analytics are all of the transactions their customers make outside their stores with competitors.
In the recent past, cross shopping was consistent across peers and oftentimes varied by department or customer segment. Some loyal shoppers prefer a certain store for women’s apparel but are more delighted by a competitor for children’s clothing purchases. It may have been a zero sum market but it was, for the most part, pretty consistent and much easier to project. Not so in today’s digitally disrupted market with thousands of online competitors, many not even on the big brick and mortar retailers’ radar screens, each vying for a piece of a store’s shopper’s wallet.
Of course, the biggest and baddest of these is the one everyone knows: Amazon. Continue reading…