Data Superiority in Brick-and-Mortar Retail 2025 will be the next battleground for retailers. Across many industries people now speak of data superiority — the company with the best and most comprehensive data wins. Historically, physical retail has lagged behind e-commerce. Online stores could measure everything — traffic, conversion, A/B tests and dwell time — while physical stores long lacked the same capabilities.
”Retailers have known a lot about the customers who completed purchases, but almost nothing about those who didn’t convert. ‘Look, look. Don’t buy’ is a common expression,” says Michael Lemner, retail strategist and recent appointee to the BizLab board.
This represents one of the industry’s largest untapped opportunities. In many segments conversion rates range only between 20–60%, notes Tanja Cronqvist of BizLab. The exception is grocery retail, where conversion approaches nearly 100%. That means more than half of visitors leave stores without buying — and without leaving any digital trace.
With modern technology, the store becomes a new data source. GDPR-compliant digital footfall counters can now estimate gender, age and dwell time. This opens new possibilities to build data superiority in physical retail by 2025.
”If you tie this into retail media, the store can become a media house and sell audience segments instead of just share of voice,” adds Tanja.
Retailers that succeed in creating data superiority in physical retail by 2025 will gain a decisive advantage. Achieving this, however, requires a mindset shift — from seeing it as a nice-to-have to recognizing it as a need-to-have.
”Physical retail must become as data-obsessed as e-commerce already is. That way the store can evolve from a traditional sales space into a data-driven media platform and generate new revenue streams in an industry with squeezed margins,” says Michael Lemner.
Conclusion
The key question is: which retailers will be first to unlock the full value of the store and build genuine data superiority in physical retail by 2025? With more than 80% of purchases still taking place in stores, this is a fight for future competitiveness.