Photo: Gap Inc.
While measuring clicks and other online data is bringing more personalized experiences to customer’s online, Art Peck, Gap Inc.’s CEO, argues that retail is far from taking advantage of in-store data.
“Stores are the deepest form of customer engagement,” said Mr. Peck last month on Gap’s second-quarter conference call. “And one thing the industry is not talking about, which is super important to me, is that they are source of an immense amount of customer data.”
Mr. Peck said that across its banners (Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta), Gap attracts two billion customer visits annually, and its co-branded and private label credit card gives the company “great intimacy with those customers.”
Gap offers incentives in order to capture customer information in its stores. In a subset of its brands and stores, clienteling is available that provides another level of insight.
“The value of converting all of this data to insight and action is huge,” added Mr. Peck. “A simple example is that migrating just one percent of our single-visit customers to be multi-channel, multi-brand represents $200 million of top line on an annual basis.”
Toward that end, the company has seen a recent success with BRIGHT, a loyalty program that lets members earn points for shopping at any of its banners.
Gaining a “longitudinal 360 view” of customers helps Gap leverage both in-store and online data into personalization to create a more relevant digital experience. Said Peck, “The rollout of personalization features across our brands is being staggered as we continue to learn more and operationalize it, but we have already deployed personalized experiences to over 250 customer segments, which has resulted in a five percent improvement in conversion when compared to a non-personalized experience.”
Finally, Gap uses data to target its best customers as the majority of the company’s marketing spend has shifted to digital channels to drive a more “surgical” approach to acquisition, activation, retention and frequency. Said Mr. Peck, “It's driving a growth in our customer file, growth in our traffic and growth in our business. And it's improving the productivity of our marketing spend at the same time.”