Sephora and Nordstrom are tops in retail personalization

Retailers Sephora and Nordstrom landed in the first and second spots, respectively, on Sailthru‘s third annual Retail Personalization Index that polled 1,500 consumers on cross-channel customer experiences.

The beauty retailer took the top spot for the third year in a row, noted a press release on the survey.

“High-scoring brands have started to show signs of true multi-channel personalization that is orchestrated to suit the customer,” stated a release on the findings. “From this insight, it’s clear that consumers report higher satisfaction and are more likely to report purchasing again from brands with engaging, personalized experiences that make shopping easy and enjoyable across all channels.”

The report revealed that large big box brands received high customer scores for likelihood to buy and that customers are embracing a variety of online, brick-and-mortar, as well as big and small brands, as long as the shopping experience is rewarding.

“Customers are highly engaged on mobile and email, not just on site and in store. The brands that performed best in the Retail Personalization Index do two things right: They deliver deep personalization on individual channels and they deliver experiences between channels that keep customers coming back,” said Jason Grunberg, vice president of marketing at Sailthru, in the release. “Today, the customer controls their shopping experience, and that’s why their feedback drives this research.”

When comparing the top 25 to retailers that did not make the top 100, the report found:

On site, 88% of the top 25 brands had personalized recommendations vs. only 21% of brands that did not rank in the index.
On email, 96% of the top 25 brands provided personalized product recommendations compared to 23% of unranked brands.
On mobile, 84% of the top 25 brands use push notifications vs. 10% of brands not in the top 100.

Many leading scorers including Sephora, The Home Depot, and Urban Outfitters performed “particularly well” on mobile and email channels, where Amazon scored poorly, according to the release.

Additional highlights from the report:

Nordstrom jumped to second place with an improvement in mobile score.
Walmart placed 25, with a strong website score, but average scores on other channels despite recent technology investments.
Amazon placed 57, with a strong website score, but lower scores on other channels.

Source: retailcustomerexperience.com