Customer loyalty down: Retailers struggle to know shoppers

By Allan Pulga

Customers want to stay loyal to retailers, but not at the cost of their privacy.

A recent National Retail Federation (NRF) report found that the number of shoppers who consider themselves “long-term and loyal” is 77.2 per cent, down from 83.8 per cent in 2005.

A major obstacle retailers face in building relationships with customers is difficulty in obtaining their personal information. NRF reports that while customers were comfortable providing their name (89.8 per cent), email address (78.1 per cent), street address (60.7 per cent), and past transactions (46.8 per cent), they were less likely to share things like weight (14.4 per cent), income (12.5 per cent), job title (12.1 per cent), employer (10.9 per cent) and net worth (8.2 per cent).

Keeping customers means keeping customers not just happy, but interested too. Shoppers want to be able to see what retailers are up to, and shop and buy seamlessly across multiple channels: the physical store, online and catalog. According to NRF, the majority of today’s consumers (77.4 per cent) use a combination of the three shopping channels, versus stores only (17.5 per cent), online only (2.9 per cent) or other (2.2 per cent).

Thus, the challenge for retailers remains: finding out more about current customers (the right CRM can help) and offering the shopping options they’re looking for (you’ve got the store, but are you online? E-commerce can help).