Retail expert Michael Lemner is visiting Sweden. After 35 years working abroad in retail with companies such as H&M, New Look, Bally, Polarn & Pyret, Jules, Pimkie, and LolaLiza, in both operational roles and on boards, he has followed the evolution of retail in Sweden and internationally.
When he met BizLabs senior advisor Christian Bönnelyche, his message was clear.
“Physical retail must start focusing more on the customers who visit but don’t convert to purchases, and consider how to influence them. With margins under pressure and changing consumer behavior, retailers need more data about all in-store visitors. In Europe people often talk about the customer behavior ‘look, look, look, don’t buy’. Today, it’s possible to collect more information about these non-buyers and find new ways to convert them using modern technology. Retailers should seize that opportunity. It’s no longer just a cost issue but a mindset about the entire store sales process,” Michael explains.
“We know that 50–90% of a store’s visitors don’t convert to purchases, depending on location and sector. With the right technology you can analyze customer flows in real time — by gender, age, time of day, weather, and also how long customers stay in the store. A few percentage points of higher conversion can mean the difference between profitability and bankruptcy,” says Michael Lemner.
Knowing the age distribution of visitors allows retailers to tailor assortments and promotions. One example from a well-known jeans chain showed that some stores had a different age profile. After adjusting the product mix, sales rose.
“There is technology today, such as BizLab Flow, that enables retailers to collect GDPR-compliant data about all visitors — without identifying individuals — and directly connect campaign exposure to actual sales. The same technology can show the right message to the right audience at the moment it will have the greatest impact,” adds Christian Bönnelyche.
“The store becomes not only a sales channel but also a media platform with measurable reach, where every screen is a channel for targeted advertising,” Christian continues.
At the same time, a new forecast from eMarketer shows that retail media in physical stores, while still a small portion of total media budgets, is expected to account for 55.9% of growth in digital out-of-home (DOOH) through 2027.
“I have always been obsessed with numbers and data, which I believe are key to success in retail, alongside the product itself. Thanks to technology, collecting data is now fast and simple, which means most of the work can be focused on analyzing and acting on it. Retailers need to put far more emphasis on this than they currently do,” concludes Michael Lemner, who is pleased to visit Sweden regularly. “Even after 35 years abroad, Sweden still feels like home,” Michael says from a sunny Ekudden in Djursholm where he grew up and helped found what is now FC Djursholm. But that’s another story.