Retailers no longer see digital technologies as a crazy young dog sprinting far ahead of its owner, who is amazed to see their dog display such independence. It is now obvious that stores and digital technologies need to work together in perfect harmony. It is in a store’s best interests to feed on the data from digital systems to gain a clearer insight into its customers and drive up footfall. As for digital technologies, they can only truly deliver relevant results when they take account of customers’ offline (purchasing) actions.

The whole challenge with stores and digital technologies is creating a virtuous circle. But customers still need to be identified from end to end. Brands have clearly understood the issue and are already looking to maximise the data collection rate at the checkout using loyalty cards.

The Commanders Act approach has already been tried-and-tested by such fashion brands as Promod and Celio, and is based on identifying user scenarios and the associated quick wins. This is a way of gradually putting the data to the test and then updating the martech stack accordingly while leading change. Taking full advantage of the omnichannel approach involves building bridges between teams that are often not used to working together.