Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know
Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.
“The customer is always right.”
It’s an age-old expression that we’re not necessarily unpacking here, but retailers should take note: A positive customer experience is critical for business. It’s a complex component of operating a retail store, but it turns out that shoppers gravitate toward stores with helpful employees, fully stocked shelves, loyalty programs, and tech—to an extent.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) would likely stop shopping at a store where they had a negative shopping experience, according to a Harris Poll/Retail Brew survey of 2,102 US adults. Conversely, 82% of those surveyed said they’re likely to return where they had a positive experience.
Help me out: More than a third of those surveyed (36%) said they were likely to stop shopping at a store where items they wanted to purchase were out of stock.
- The most important factors in creating a positive shopping experience, according to survey respondents, are in-stock items (70%), the ease and speed of checkout (64% and 61%, respectively), helpful employees (62%), having multiple options for items (49%) and store layout (48%).
- When it comes to employees, the data shows they’re largely taking care of business: Almost three-quarters (73%) report that retail workers helped enhance their shopping experience.
Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty: More than four in five respondents (82%) report belonging to at least one loyalty program, with a majority (56%) belonging to between one and four, 20% between five and nine, 6% to 10 or more, and 18% to none.
- Interestingly, 25% of Zoomers report not belonging to a loyalty program, the highest percentage among all cohorts.
Everybody's email inbox is overflowing, but if retailers have something to offer, then it might be worth it. Almost two-thirds (65%) of Americans approved of retailers contacting them for deals, promotions, and sales. For those that belong to at least one retail loyalty program, 75% report using the discounts, promos, and coupons that are provided often, with over a quarter (28%) saying they use them “very often.”
Tech crunch: While only around a quarter of Americans report using chatbots when shopping online (27%), frictionless checkout technology (27%), or biometric payments (25%) often, those figures jump to closer to half for Gen Z (49%, 48%, and 41%, respectively) and millennials (46%, 45%, and 45%).
- However, two-thirds (67%) of Americans—and three-quarters of older shoppers—said they were concerned about “retailers collecting and using their data to enhance shopping experiences.”