Customers are “less brand loyal than they’ve really ever been historically,” Best Buy CEO Corie Barry told investors over the summer. The comment, tucked into the Q&A section of an earnings call, marked a high-level acknowledgement of a well-documented problem for retailers: Customer loyalty is becoming a scarce commodity. According to Emarsys, an omnichannel customer engagement platform, 79% of US consumers in 2022 said they were loyal to specific brands, retailers, and stores. But that number dropped 14% and 13% in 2023 and 2024, respectively. What’s behind the drop-off? Sara Richter, chief marketing officer of Emarsys, told Retail Brew that the culprit is an “ever more empowered consumer” who is shopping across multiple channels and is “expecting the experience to flow across those channels.” Meeting this expectation requires more than offering promotions and other financial incentives—as a number of retailers have already started doing as of the second week of October. To gain loyalty, she added, stores must invest in improving the overall experience for customers or risk losing out to their competitors. Keep reading here.—AV | 
