Shoppers no longer separate the brand they meet online from the one they meet in store. They expect both to recognize them. They expect the conversation to pick up where it left off. And they expect every interaction to feel like it was designed for them, not for a segment of one million. For premium retailers, knowing how to create a personalized shopping experience that meets that bar is now the baseline for loyalty.

A personalized shopping experience is what turns a high-spending customer into a repeat one, and a repeat customer into a measurable revenue channel.

What is a personalized shopping experience?

A personalized shopping experience is one where the brand uses what it knows about a customer to make every interaction more relevant. Product recommendations, communications, store visits, and service moments are all shaped by that customer’s history, preferences, and context.

This goes beyond a name in an email subject line. Real personalization is built on a unified view of the customer, one that travels with them across channels. The associate at the flagship store sees the same profile the customer sees in the brand’s app. The recommendations a shopper gets at home reflect the conversation they had in store last week. 

For premium retailers, this is what clienteling is built to deliver – an ongoing, personalized relationship between an associate and a customer that drives repeat revenue.

Why personalization matters

The business case for a personalized online shopping experience, and an equally strong in-store version, is well documented. It comes down to three things.

Higher revenue per customer. When recommendations match what a customer actually wants, basket size goes up. Personalization is one of the more reliable levers for retailers looking to increase AOV without acquiring new shoppers.

Stronger loyalty. Customers stay with brands that treat them as individuals. Personalization is one of the more durable ways to enhance customer loyalty because it compounds over time. Each interaction adds to the profile, and each future interaction gets sharper as a result.

Better margins. Personalized service reduces return rates, raises full-price sell-through, and supports more effective upselling and cross selling. The economics improve on every dimension.

Personalization is not a vanity metric. It shows up in revenue, retention, and margin.

The foundation: the capability you need before strategy

Before any personalization strategy will work, the retailer needs the underlying capability. Three pieces of infrastructure are non-negotiable.

A unified customer profile. Purchase history sits in the OMS. Preferences and engagement data sit in marketing tools. Loyalty status sits in another platform. Store conversations sit in associate tools, if they are captured at all. The capability is bringing it together into one record per customer, accessible in real time.

Real-time inventory visibility. A recommendation an associate cannot fulfill is worse than no recommendation. Personalization depends on knowing what is actually in stock across the network, not what was on hand last night.

A delivery surface inside the workflow. The unified profile has to show up where the associate already works, which means inside the POS on a mobile device, not in a separate app. Without that, the data exists but never gets used.

Personalized shopping experience strategies that drive revenue

Once the capability is in place, strategies are what teams actually do with it. The four below consistently move the needle.

1. Equip store associates with full customer context

When associates can see purchase history, sizing, preferences, wishlist activity, and past conversations, every store interaction is a chance to convert, raise the basket, or set up the next visit.

This is the core promise of retail clienteling. It gives the associate the information they need to recognize the customer, anticipate the need, and follow up after the visit. The result is consistent, measurable store revenue from the customers a brand already has, rather than relying on one-time transactions or paid acquisition. James Avery, an artisan jewelry brand where some customers have been shopping for 50 years, takes this literally. When a granddaughter walks in with a single 30-year-old earring inherited from her grandmother and asks for help finding its match, the associate can pull up decades of family purchase history at the counter. By unifying customer data with the OMS and

POS, James Avery makes sure those long-running relationships are not lost when an associate turns over or a system changes.

2. Use purchase history to shape recommendations

Past behavior is a reliable predictor of future preference. A customer who has bought three pairs of slim-fit denim does not need to be shown a relaxed cut.

In practice, this means giving the associate a single view of the customer at the moment of interaction. Last purchase. Sizing across categories. Items returned and why. Wishlist activity from the app. The conversation an associate had with that customer six months ago, and the note they left after.

That view is what turns order history into a recommendation. Without it, the associate is guessing. With it, the conversation starts at “I saw you bought the wool coat last fall, the new shearling just landed in your size,” rather than “Can I help you find anything?”

3. Create a personalized in-store shopping experience, not just digital

A personalized online shopping experience gets most of the attention, but the offline personalized shopping experience is where retailers often have the most upside. Many brands have invested heavily in digital personalization while leaving the in-store experience generic, even though the store is where the highest-spending customers actually transact.

Closing that gap is straightforward in concept. Give associates a mobile tool with the customer profile built into the POS, so it is part of how they already sell. Train them to use it as a conversation starter, not a script. Capture notes after each visit. When done consistently, this is how the store becomes a measurable revenue channel rather than a fulfillment channel. It is also one of the reasons the importance of clienteling keeps rising on retail leadership agendas.

4. Extend personalization beyond the four walls

Personalization does not have to stop when the customer leaves the store. Outreach after a visit, styling suggestions ahead of an event, restock notifications on a favorite item: each one extends the relationship.

Virtual shopping is a strong example. An associate who knows a customer well can run a video appointment that feels closer to a private styling session than a sales call. The customer gets time and attention. The associate gets to reach beyond their own catchment area. The brand gets a higher-value transaction.

Mackage shows the model working at scale. The brand built clienteling into the way associates already sell, with mobile tools that let them follow up after a visit and send personalized styling suggestions. Clienteling now drives roughly 30% of store revenue at Mackage. The store stayed central. The reach extended.

Common challenges to plan for

Most personalization programs run into the same obstacles. Naming them up front makes them easier to navigate.

Data silos. The single most common blocker. If purchase history, loyalty status, and store conversations live in separate systems, no amount of strategy will close the gap.

Associate adoption. A personalization tool that associates do not use is a budget line, not an asset. The most reliable way to drive adoption is to embed the tool inside the POS, so accessing the customer profile and following up are part of the sales workflow rather than an extra app to remember. Training and incentive alignment matter, but workflow placement matters more.

Privacy and trust. Customers are willing to share data when they see the value. They are quick to disengage when personalization feels intrusive. The line is real and worth designing around.

Measurement. Personalization is easy to talk about and harder to measure. Pick a small set of metrics, including AOV, repeat purchase rate, and associate-attributed revenue, and track them honestly.

What separates programs that drive revenue from programs that look good

Most personalization programs that miss the mark do not fail because the strategy was wrong. They failed because the program wasn’t built into how stores actually operate. Accessing customer profiles required switching between apps, adding friction to already busy workflows, so associates often skipped it. At the same time, personalization was owned by marketing, leaving store teams without a sense of responsibility. And because revenue was measured at the channel level, there was no clear way to determine whether the program was improving store performance.

The programs that succeed take the opposite approach. Customer profiles are instantly accessible within the POS associates already use, removing extra steps. The store team owns the relationship, supported by the tools, not the other way around. And revenue is attributed back to the associate who drove it, which is what makes the program defensible at budget time.

Clienteling in luxury retail is the clearest illustration of this model at scale, but the principles are not exclusive to luxury. They apply to any premium brand where the store is the highest-value channel and the associate is the relationship.

Best practices for creating a personalized shopping experience

A few practical principles for retailers looking to build or rebuild their personalization programs.

Start with the associate. For premium retailers, the store is where high-value relationships are built. Repeat customers, high-AOV transactions, and the conversations that generate the next purchase all happen in person more often than in any other channel. If the in-store experience is generic, no amount of email personalization will close the gap. The first investment that pays for itself is putting a real customer profile in the associate’s hand.Unify the data before optimizing the experience. Personalization built on top of fragmented systems will hit a ceiling fast. Purchase history in the OMS, payment history, loyalty status, and

store conversations all need to land in one place, accessible at the moment of the interaction. Without that, every channel is working with a different version of the customer.

Pick a few high-value moments and execute well. Onboarding a new customer, the post-purchase follow-up, restock alerts on a wishlist item, and pre-event outreach are reliable starting points. Each is a moment when a relevant message materially increases the likelihood of a return visit.

Measure what matters. Outreach volume per associate, response rate, conversion rate from outreach, AOV, and customer lifetime value are the metrics that prove whether the program is generating revenue or noise. Activity metrics in isolation are not enough.

Personalization that drives revenue, not just experience

Knowing how to create a personalized shopping experience for premium retailers comes down to three things: unified customer data, associates equipped to act on it inside the POS workflow, and a measurement framework that ties every interaction back to revenue. The brands doing this well are not running a parallel personalization program alongside their store operations. They have made personalization part of how their stores sell, and they can prove it in their numbers.

Book a demo to learn more about how NewStore helps premium retailers embed clienteling into the POS workflow and turn store interactions into measurable revenue.

Last updated on March 23rd, 2026 at 10:52 am

Establishing long-term customer loyalty is at the top of every retailer’s wish list. To achieve this, retailers should segment their customer relationship management frameworks by regional audience and pinpoint what their loyalty objectives are trying to solve for. Not only will this help them stand out in the competitive marketplace, but it will also drive greater customer retention.

Gianfranco Cuzziol, International CRM and Personalization Lead for Natura & Co’s Avon brand until February 2024 (and current Business Lead at Dr. Martens), recently discussed the thought process behind developing a global customer relationship management (CRM) framework during an Endless Aisle podcast episode with Marcus LaRobardiere, NewStore’s Vice President of Marketing. Gianfranco and Marcus also defined various types of customer loyalty – including advocacy and retention loyalty – and addressed how those impact consumers’ long-term relationships with brands.

Read below for several key takeaways from Marcus and Gianfranco’s conversation, and click here to listen to the full podcast episode.

Creating a Global CRM Framework 

As the global marketplace grows more crowded, retailers must evolve their CRM frameworks to better reach audiences around the world. According to Gianfranco, retailers should begin this process by developing a common framework and then allowing teams in regional markets to adapt the framework according to their specific needs.

“There is often a need to say, ‘Look, let’s draw a line under this,’” Gianfranco said. “Let’s create this common framework across the globe so we’re protecting the brand. Then, we’ll bring you all up to a certain degree of maturity [to] understand the way we do CRM, automation, personalization…

“That allows you to have some flexibility within the framework to deliver to your requirements, because you have your own objectives, depending on the business unit or the market you’re sitting in.”

This results in retailers needing to create segmentation models based on how customers in various parts of the world prefer to shop.

“We created this segmentation model and a customer lifetime value model for the globe,” Gianfranco said. “But it became apparent that having a global customer lifetime value model didn’t really work. 

“The way that customers transacted and shopped in the far east was completely different to how they transacted in Australia. We then had to drill down and provide a segmentation model that was fit for purpose for each of the four regions.”

CRM Implementation with Cultural Differences

A key piece of developing a strong CRM framework stems from incorporating cultural nuances and ensuring that regional teams understand the rationale behind all decisions.

“Part of the new tech vision data implementation also involved a certain amount of cultural work,” Gianfranco said. “We needed to make sure that we took the regional retail and marketing teams – and digital teams – along the journey, and make sure they were fully bought into that vision. 

“We had consultants in store who were slightly reticent about collecting customer information,” he continued. “So we needed to go through a training exercise to prove to them that there was value in collecting a customer email address and name.”

If sales associates understand the objective behind each step of the framework – and how it impacts them personally – they will be much more likely to develop better customer relationships, which in turn will drive stronger customer loyalty to the brand.

“The welcome journey we implemented was from the store you made your first purchase in,” Gianfranco said. “We want you to have that relationship with the store, if not the consultant as well.

“You spent that time converting that prospect into a customer, and we want to reward you by making sure the customer comes back to you. We did the very simple thing of saying, ‘We can prove to you that for a customer for whom we have an email address, here’s the incremental value it brings back to the business, and hence to your store, by you collecting that.’ And so there was part of that cultural education piece we needed to deliver.”

Defining Customer Loyalty

In addition to developing adaptable CRM frameworks, retailers seeking to prioritize retention should focus on fostering long-term customer loyalty. Part of this strategy includes defining the end goal of driving customer loyalty – whether it’s trying to increase customers’ average basket size, creating brand advocates that will spread the word among friends and family, or retaining existing customers with retail promotion strategies.

“[There are] many definitions of what loyalty is,” Gianfranco said. “It doesn’t matter which organization you work in – try and work out what you mean by loyalty and identify what loyalty means to your customer. [As an example], there’s behavioral loyalty. I shop every day at my local mini-mart. I’m not necessarily loyal to them; it’s just that they happen to be about 50 yards from my house.

“And then you’ve got advocacy loyalty,” he continued. “If you come up to me and say, ‘Would you recommend a BMW as a car,’ I would say yes. I don’t own a BMW, but I have owned [a] BMW, and it’s an amazing driving experience. 

“And then there’s retention loyalty [where] lots of freebies come my way. You need to make sure you think about loyalty, what it means, and whether you’re trying to drive loyalty, [or] whether in reality what you’re trying to drive is more frequent purchase.”

Developing Customer Personas

Gianfranco also noted that developing customer personas yields better personalization opportunities. A customer persona refers to an archetypal profile of a target customer, complete with behaviors, needs, and motivations.

“I think personas have their place and often [are] the starting point to more refined personalization,” Gianfranco said. “For example, when a customer first comes to your website, you know nothing about that customer. You might know where they’ve come from because you’ve tracked where they’ve clicked in from. You start to understand the product they’re looking at. 

“But as you start to acquire data points about that customer, as they spend time on that website, as they perhaps register [for] a newsletter or talk to your agent online – that’s when you can start moving into more sophisticated, relevant conversations with that customer,” he continued.

“[For example], in the beauty space, you’ve bought a cleanser and a toner. Here’s the hydrator that goes along with that. You need to make sure the information you’re giving a customer is relevant to that particular product – how to use it; when you should be replenishing that product; what’s an alternative if it’s not right for you.”

Balancing Customer Personalization with Privacy

While customer personalization is key to attaining and retaining shoppers, it’s also imperative to keep in mind that privacy is a top concern for many individuals, especially as AI in retail continues gaining momentum. Therefore, retailers must be forthcoming about their privacy policies and remain compliant with them in order to maintain customers’ trust.

“There’s this privacy personalization paradox – customers want a personalized, relevant, connected experience, but they also want you to be mindful of their privacy,” Gianfranco said. 

“What I found is that upfront, if you can be as transparent and honest as possible with customers, they’re more likely to trust you with their data. Be consistent with the way you apply that – don’t all of a sudden change the way you use the data without having talked to the customer.”

Connected, Adaptive, and Relevant Shopping Experiences

Gianfranco also discussed the components of an ideal shopping experience, which hinge on retailers’ understanding that all customers begin their journeys with a specific mission in mind.

“With all this data and technology around at the moment, we have to remember that customers are on a mission,” Gianfranco said. “It could be, ‘I want to buy something really quickly. I’m going to do some research. I want to provide some feedback.’ So that’s the core piece we need to think about. What is the customer trying to do, and then how do we spin out the technology data and experience to deliver on that in the way the customer wants?

“I often talk about the ideal shopping experience…I call it CAR,” he continued. “It needs to be Connected, Adaptive, and Relevant. Because the customer’s trying to get from A to B, and that’s what CAR is there for us to do. You have to adapt that experience to meet [their] need.”

Prioritizing Customer Retention

Once retailers determine the type of customer loyalty they’re aiming for, they should then brainstorm strategies to prioritize customer retention. While reaching new audiences should always be a priority, the benefits of fostering long-term relationships with consumers can’t be overstated.

“We should be thinking about retaining customers more – treating our customers better,” Gianfranco said. “There are lots of numbers around how much more expensive it is to acquire new customers than retain an existing one. The one thing to bear in mind is that good acquisition makes good retention. 

“If you nail [retention loyalty], [it] then reduces your advertising costs, acquisition costs,” he continued. “And by nailing that and understanding what makes a good customer, it allows you to be smart in the acquisition space. You spend all that time and effort getting a new customer on board…don’t lose them.”

Interested in learning how your business can foster stronger customer loyalty and drive retention? Speak to one of our experts today.

Last updated on August 5th, 2024 at 01:19 pm

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As consumers enjoy a larger variety of shopping options thanks to the globalization of retail, brands must differentiate themselves from their competition by further personalizing the customer journey. Retailers can tap into more resources than ever to accomplish this, including leveraging omnichannel platforms to bridge the gap between physical and digital shopping experiences. The growth of artificial intelligence will also likely play a role in customizing the shopping journey.

James Reid, Chief Innovation Officer at fashion retailer AllSaints, recently sat down for an Endless Aisle podcast conversation with Marcus LaRobardiere, NewStore’s Vice President of Marketing. James and Marcus discussed strategies with which brands can bring omnichannel shopping to life. From finding ways to connect in-store and online experiences to leveraging bots to provide sizing information, retailers can transform each step of the customer journey to include more personalization.

Read on for more insights from Marcus and James’s discussion, and click here to listen to the full podcast episode.

Bridging the Gap Between Physical and Digital Shopping Experiences

Today’s digitally-savvy consumers might begin their customer journey on one platform – for instance, a mobile app – and end it on another, such as in a brick-and-mortar store. To best meet customers’ evolving needs, brands must bridge the gap between their digital and physical shopping platforms to create a true omnichannel experience. This results in retailers gaining greater omnichannel insights, including holistic views of customer profiles, past and current orders, and store performance.

“I know everybody’s talked about this principle for the last 10 years, but [we] very much want to blur the line between the in-store experience and the online experience,” James said. “One of the things that the retail platform will bring us is the principle of a common account across in-store and online. We need to do that in a way that’s adding value for the customer, even down to [tracking] your receipts.

“If you want to bring a return in, we can find that transaction and refund [it] to the original payment method, which then gives us value in terms of accuracy of tracking how that’s actually working. It’s an interesting area when you start getting into that level of data, because from my perspective, the capabilities are enormous and the service we can provide off the back of it is enormous.”

How BORIS Helps Drive In-Store Sales

One way in which retailers can connect online and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences is by offering BOPIS (buy online pickup in store) and BORIS (buy online return in store) fulfillment options. This lets shoppers make purchases via mobile app or website and visit their nearest store to pick up the items or return them, if needed. The in-store visit offers opportunities for sales associates to recommend additional or alternative items that the shopper may not have initially considered.

“In terms of buy online and return in store, it’s a capability we’ve had for a little while now, and it is a footfall driver,” James said. “It’s an opportunity for cross-sell and upsell [opportunities] when the customer comes back in and maybe turning a return into an exchange if it’s a sizing challenge. So it’s always good to get an opportunity to put a customer in front of the stylists in store.”

How Bots Can Impact the Customer Journey

Retailers can also opt to leverage bots to add further personalization to their customer experiences. These can include chatbots that field shoppers’ more basic questions or bots that offer product and sizing recommendations based on customer profiles.

“One of the things we are considering is whether to put a slightly more invasive step to the online customer journey,” James said. “To put a little bot in place that says, ‘I can see you’ve put two of these in two different sizes in your basket…would you like some guidance as to which one’s going to be the better fit?’

“We’re working through how we do that, what information we base it off, et cetera.”

Balancing Personalization with Transparency

While personalizing the customer experience will likely result in greater brand affinity among shoppers – and higher sales – retailers must keep transparency around the use of customer data top of mind. More shoppers are paying attention to the ethics around data collection as artificial intelligence continues gaining popularity.

“If a customer walks into [a] store and says, ‘I’ve seen one of your black leather jackets online; I’d love to see if you’ve got that in stock,’…now, we have a number of different options available,” James said. “The ability to look up that customer from a browsing history point of view, work through with them what it is they’ve seen and give them a better service to identify, ‘Oh, you mean that one,’ in theory is great.

“People understand and appreciate there’s a lot of information gathering and tracking that goes on in the background, but it becomes a different response when you put it in front of their face. It’s something we are very cognizant of – to make sure that we are not being overly invasive, but doing it in a way that’s win-win for the customer,” James continued.

“And that win-win works in a number of different ways because it helps get better accuracy; it will help with gathering customer feedback. For example, you’re trying a particular jacket on and maybe the sizing is slightly [off] in terms of the customer expectations, so you end up sizing up. We can feed that back into the design cycle and through the supply chain to [fine]tune what we are producing to better match those customer expectations.”

Maintaining a Customer-Centric Focus

However retailers choose to revitalize their customer journeys, they must ensure they always maintain a clear vision and commitment to putting consumers’ needs first.

“You have to be very clear about what you’re looking to achieve and what’s driving you to achieve that,” James said. “The customer being the boss…having that as a guiding principle informs everything else. 

“For me, the goal is to maximize access for the customer however they choose to deal with us, whether that’s online or in-store or through a concession or through a third party. We have to meet the customer wherever they are, and we have to provide the service they’re requiring. And that strategy is working very well.”

To learn more about how your business can further personalize your customer journey, speak to one of our experts today.