The personalisation of a customer’s in-store experience is rapidly becoming a big deal within the world of retail. With the onset of omni-channel retailing, the general expectation of the average customer when it comes to the kind of service they wish to receive has risen markedly. It seems that the balance of power has shifted and now rests in the hands of the consumer. Multi-site retailers are having to adapt to the changing face of the retail marketplace and find ways of replicating within their high street stores the kind of experience consumers already enjoy while shopping online.

To achieve this, a number of retail organisations are looking at new ways of capturing essential big data. This complex but vital data includes current buying trends, localised sales figures, customer purchase history and detailed real estate data or what we term estate intelligence. This final analytical element, estate intelligence, is perhaps the most underutilised but is a vital cog in the marketing machine. Smart retailers have taken the results gleaned from data research to offer personalised in-store shopping experiences to their customers, designed to attract people back to the high street. Here are five of the most successful.

Waitrose

Although the idea of a supermarket loyalty card is certainly nothing new (Sainsbury’s and Tesco have been successfully running loyalty schemes for years), Waitrose has taken things a step further. Not only are they offering personalised deals to customers based on their shopping habits, but those same customers also receive the opportunity to enjoy a free tea or coffee within stores.

iBeacons

The new service from Apple has the potential to become a fixture in the regular shopping routine of consumers across the globe. This innovative technology not only offers a good mobile payment option, but can also be deployed in shopping centres to help customers navigate their way to particular stores. It also has the ability to send individual marketing messages to consumers via their smartphones.

Selfridges

For retailers such as Selfridges, whose stores are classed as destinations, the standard new retail installation and refit is no longer sufficient to satisfy experience-hungry customers. The Fragrance Lab concept from Selfridges, offering customers the chance to find their perfect scent through scientific know-how, is a superb example of the new immersive retail experience many people are now looking for.

Topshop

Perfectly blending in-store marketing with truly advanced technology, the London flagship store of the Topshop fashion chain utilised the Oculus Rift, a virtual-reality headset, to make their customers feel as if they were sitting in the front row at the Topshop Unique show at London Fashion Week.

Argos

The high street catalogue chain replaced its paper catalogues with digital screens a while ago now, but it is only just beginning to expand the potential of this new technology. The Argos smartphone app allows customers to check the stock levels of various products in the Argos stores closest to them, thereby ensuring that if a customer walks into one of their stores, they are guaranteed to make a purchase.

Online shopping was once seen as a huge threat to the future of the high street. However, it has simply served as a medium for change, with multi-site retailers finding increasingly innovative ways of personalising the bricks-and-mortar shopping experience.