Now Reading: Retailers ditch old loyalty playbooks as shoppers hop channels
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Retailers ditch old loyalty playbooks as shoppers hop channels
Indian retailers are rethinking customer retention as shoppers freely switch between Instagram, Amazon, quick commerce apps and physical stores. Tata CLiQ CEO Gopal Asthana told The Economic Times that retention is no…
The Story in Brief
Indian retailers are rethinking customer retention as shoppers freely switch between Instagram, Amazon, quick commerce apps and physical stores. Tata CLiQ CEO Gopal Asthana told The Economic Times that retention is no longer about the next transaction but about building consistent experience across the full customer journey. Direct-to-consumer brands like Kapiva and Plum now treat customers as brand loyal but channel agnostic, tracking them across platforms rather than measuring retention per channel. The shift follows rising customer acquisition costs and the breakdown of traditional brand inertia. Brand-equity.economictimes.indiatimes.com notes that old loyalty built on repetition and limited choice has given way to a world where availability, price and delivery speed often trump brand preference.
The Indian Opinion
The lazy refrain that brand loyalty is dead ignores what is actually happening: shoppers remain loyal to a brand, but not to a channel. The real trap is confusing inertia with loyalty. For decades, habits and limited choice masked weak preference. Now that choice and convenience have exploded, only brands that earn active, conscious choice will thrive. The test ahead is not about which loyalty programme works best, but whether a brand can remain relevant across every touchpoint without losing its identity.
Sources (2): brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com, retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources.
