Case Studies
Travel Retail
Optimizing the Traveller's Path to Purchase
The challenge
China’s travel retail sector has undergone significant transformation in the past five years, particularly due to the impact of COVID-19. Simultaneously, domestic retail competition has intensified, making it challenging for travel retail brands to engage shoppers, drive conversions, and accelerate sales growth. Our client aimed to understand the key moments and touchpoints that influence shopper behaviour.
The solution
We believe that truly understanding travel retail shoppers requires a holistic approach. Our research explored a wide range of factors influencing their behaviour, from macro retail trends and store design, including in-store touchpoint activations and, most importantly, staff and service experience, to build a comprehensive understanding of the travel retail channel dynamics and shopper sentiment. This, coupled with longitudinal shopper ethnography, enabled us to uncover key insights into the triggers, experiences, and rewards driving purchasing decisions.
The impact
Our partnership with the client, spanning over the last five years, has enabled continuous tracking of evolving duty-free shopper behaviours and psychology. The resulting insights provided a comprehensive understanding of the travel retail landscape allowing our clients develop a consumer-centric channel strategy. These findings now serve as the cornerstone of the client’s travel retail strategy, informing decisions on product assortment, marketing, and retail design. A practical and visually compelling store design playbook has translated these insights into actionable retail innovations that are embedded and live and breathe across the organisation.