Mapping how shoppers move between stores, apps and websites

What is shaping retail

Retailers and D2C brands compete across stores, apps and marketplaces. Store experience, availability and convenience decide where shoppers go next.

• Shoppers move freely between online and offline
• Store experience is a key differentiator
• Loyalty programmes and personalisation drive repeat

A department store group, working in United Kingdom. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.

Organisation

A department store group

Sector

Retail

Team engaged

Market Research

Services

Consumer panel, Quantitative research, Digital analytics & reporting

The group had invested in a new website and app, but online and store teams worked separately and each claimed credit for the same sales. Leadership needed to understand how customers actually combined channels when shopping for clothing, homeware and beauty products, so that investment and targets could be set fairly.

• Deliver on the brief: mapping how shoppers move between stores, apps and websites.
• Understand the views, needs and behaviour of shoppers.
• Produce results that can be compared across groups and locations.
• Give the client evidence it can act on within 9 weeks.

The work focused on 2,500 shoppers.

• shoppers2,500

Audiences we typically reach in retail

ShoppersStore staff and managersOnline customersLoyalty membersFranchisees

Coverage: United Kingdom. Market: United Kingdom.

• United Kingdom

A structured quantitative design, so results could be compared across groups, locations and time.

1. 1Brief
2. 2Shopper survey
3. 3Purchase diaries
4. 4Web analytics review
5. 5Insight

We surveyed recent shoppers about their last purchases in each category, recording where they first saw the product, where they researched it and where they finally bought it. A smaller group kept two-week purchase diaries on their phones, logging every browse and purchase, including screenshots. We compared these journeys with website and app analytics to see where digital research led to store purchases.

Consumer panelQuantitative researchDigital analytics & reporting

shoppers

2,500

• Online respondents were drawn from verified panel members who matched the screening criteria, with quotas on key profile attributes.

two-week diaries

120

• The online survey was mobile-friendly and offered in respondents' languages.

• Digital fingerprinting and duplicate checks
• Attention, speed and straight-lining checks
• Review of open-ended answers
• Logic and range checks on the final data
• Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures

• Cross-tabulation by key groups and locations
• Significance testing on the differences that mattered
• Interactive dashboard for ongoing tracking

• Most store purchases in homeware and beauty began with online browsing, while many online clothing orders followed a store visit to check fit.

Diaries captured the real, messy path to purchase that single-channel data could not.

• Build on the core insight: diaries captured the real, messy path to purchase that single-channel data could not.
• Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: most store purchases in homeware and beauty began with online browsing, while many online clothing orders followed a store visit to check fit.
• Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.

• The group introduced shared targets for store and online teams, added “check stock in store” and “reserve and collect” features, and began measuring digital influence on store sales.

What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.

• Insight report and management presentation
• Cleaned data file and data tables
• Interactive dashboard

• Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
• A natural follow-on question: what drives repeat purchase?