How Omnichannel Brands Build a Single View of the Shopper

The reality is that in today’s retail environment, consumers are interacting with brands in many different interaction points, including mobile apps, the web, social media, call centers, and marketplaces. In each interaction, a huge set of data is created such as browser history, transactions, loyalty activities, payment options, returns, and reviews. While each data set is telling part of the story alone, in order for brands to get the complete picture, they have to aggregate all the data.

“Single view of the shopper,” however, is much more than just an interesting marketing term. It has become an imperative for any business when it comes to living out the ideals of personalization, marketing, and customer experience.

Indian market leaders like Tata CLiQ, Reliance Retail, and BigBasket are already setting the bar for the creation of such a customer intelligence through data unification, identity resolution, governance, and analytics.

Why a Single View Matters

Now, prior to delving into the examples, it will help to define what a “single view” consists of. This will help provide

• Unified Identity by connecting a consumer’s behavior on mobile, web, store loyalty cards, and third-party platforms.
• Detailed Behavior Profile Information by browsing data, purchase history, return data, wishlists
• Signals by placing the same emphasis on the digital world as on the real world.
• Consistent metrics like repeat business rate, risk of churn and segmentation.

This will facilitate a unified view to drive consistent experiences across channels, offer personalization based on actual behaviors, enable better forecasting and inventory distribution, and unlock insights currently hidden in disconnected datasets.

Tata CLiQ: Unified Identity Across Digital and Store

Tata CLiQ operates both digital storefronts and omnichannel services connecting brand partners and marketplaces. To serve customers seamlessly whether browsing on mobile, purchasing via web, or picking up from a partner store, Tata CLiQ invested in an omnichannel customer data strategy.

How Tata CLiQ Built Shopper Unity

• Everything that occurs, such as clicks in the app, clicks on the website, wishlist actions, orders, and returns, is attributed to a particular customer in the customer central profile store.
• Rewards and loyalty benefits are provided irrespective of the channel used.
• Behavioral and transactional data are inputted for segmentation and personalization techniques through predictive models.

By removing silos between these channels, Tata CLiQ makes sure that promotions, recommendations, and service are based on the entire shopping history of the consumer rather than mere fragments.

Reliance Retail: In-Store & Digital Experience Connectivity

Reliance Retail is a Reliance Group company that operates many formats. Reliance Retail operates in multiple formats. 

Key Steps in Reliance’s Shopper View

• Connecting phone number-based loyalty IDs to web-based profiles.
• All in-store purchase activity through apps or online browsing is integrated into a unified system. 
• Recommendations are given in a personal manner in real-time through an app or via a kiosk in a store.

For example, a customer could be an avid online purchaser of skincare and then show up in a physical store, an integrated system from Reliance can provide in-store offers tailored on previous digital behavior. This creates consistent, relevant experiences that drive engagement and lifetime value.

BigBasket: Personalization across grocery journeys

BigBasket, the leading online grocery platform of India, is a high-frequency purchase category where insight into the buying habit plays an important role.

BigBasket's Single Consumer Strategy

• Purchase history from app and web is consolidated into a unified central profile.
• Subscription models are offered for habit formation. In weekly replenishment phases ads are used in personalized recommendations.
• When customers shift between mobile and desktop devices, the same customer is identified by their system.

This single view enables BigBasket to suggest product bundles based on actual repeat purchases, optimize delivery timing predictions, and tailor offers for seasonal or category preferences. By connecting every signal, BigBasket turns data into predictive insight.

How DataSense Accelerates This Transformation

A solution such as DataSense helps an omnichannel brand create a shopper profile with all the signals from different sources such as online, app, stores, loyalty cards, business partners, and third-party systems all reported in one place so that different identifiers can be merged into a single consent-aware shopper profile. This can be easily accessed for the purpose of accelerating insights from analytics and marketing teams by feeding profiles and forecasting directly into campaign systems, service systems, and personalization systems.

At its root, DataSense allows brands to overcome the problem of data fragmentation and move towards shopper clarity.

Conclusion

In omnichannel retailing, a single view of the shopper is no longer a nicety; it is an imperative. These brands-Tata CLiQ, Reliance Retail, and BigBasket-are showing just how consistent customer identities overcome fragmented interactions, how connected data leads to coherent personalized experiences, and insights that span channels best isolated analytics.

Unlocking data at the shopper level empowers brands to be agile, relevant, and growing.