The ever-changing retail shopping landscape

The answer is yes—your devices, and your smartphone especially—are monitoring you all the time. Through real-time analytics fed by an ever-widening digital footprint, businesses track your patterns and habits, your interests, location and even your emotions—all to better predict what you’ll buy, and when. 

“In the past, retailers could only learn about customers by watching where they walked in a store or what they picked up,” said Stacey Robinson, the Jean Howard Lowe associate professor of marketing in the Harbert College of Business. "“Yesterday’s clipboards and foot-traffic counters became today’s heat maps and clickstreams. Every click, search, and purchase creates a trail of information that retailers can use to better understand and serve their customers.”

 

Read the full story featuring marketing faculty Stacey Robinson and Mark Gleim published by the Auburn Alumni Association.