Customerland
Customerland is a podcast about …. Customers. How to get more of them. How to keep them. What makes them tick. We talk to the experts, the technologies and occasionally, actual people – you know, customers – to find out what they’re all about.So if you’re a CX pro, a loyalty marketer, a brand owner, an agency planner … if you’re a CRM & personalization geek, if you’re a customer service / CSAT / NPS nerd – you finally have a home.
Customerland
Your Average Shopper Doesn’t Exist
Shoppers aren’t average anymore—and our stores shouldn’t be either. We dig into why treating each location as a living ecosystem beats blanket strategies, especially when consumer signals are split between cautious and confident spending. With Justine Melman, CMO at Optimum Retailing, we explore how connected data and AI-powered planograms turn messy, stressful environments into calm, intuitive spaces that invite discovery and drive conversion.
Across the conversation, we unpack the tension between shopper stress and in-store enjoyment, revealing why cluttered shelves and noisy signage push people away while clear wayfinding and focused merchandising pull them in. We talk through the rise of impulse purchases as a form of self-care, and how retailers can enable those moments without overwhelming the senses. Justine shares how localized insights—traffic patterns, heatmaps, weather, and nearby events—feed dynamic planograms that adapt assortments, facings, and features to each store’s real shoppers, not theoretical personas.
You’ll hear concrete examples, including a telco that used Realogram to generate automated, store-specific planograms and saw up to a 17% lift in sales—proof that dynamic beats static when executed at scale. We also tackle the category gap: grocery and health are resilient, while apparel, electronics, and restaurants fight for discretionary dollars. The unlock is emotional relevance. By framing “nonessential” items through practicality and personal impact, brands can turn nice-to-have into must-have in ways that feel authentic and local.
If you’re a retail leader ready to replace averages with precision, this is your playbook: use data to sense, AI to decide, and simple design to soothe. Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review with one change you’ll make to localize your stores this quarter.
Retailers need to stop treating stores as static environments. Stores should be living ecosystems that are adaptable to the needs of their customers. And I think what happens far too often is that retailers create these blanket strategies and they might say, no, no, no, we were regionalized for that market. And you know, we were, we we understood that, you know, this market was maybe different than that market. But that doesn't mean that each store with its own sort of live and breathing environment that connected with its unique shopping base.
SPEAKER_00:Today on Adventures in Customer Land, I'm with Justine Melman, who is CMO at Optimum Retailing. This is version two of a conversation we started actually. I think we started this conversation back at NRF in early 2025. And then, well, anyway, um, episode number one of this happened earlier this year. And here we are with a follow-up because we said there was just way too much to cover in that one. So here we are. With all that, Justine, thanks for joining me.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for having me back, Mike. I'm excited uh and hoping that this is just, you know, another episode in what will be a whole series of episodes.
SPEAKER_00:Let's do it. My people say yes to that. Great. Um, you know, just to reset context a little bit, can you tell us a little bit about optimum retailing and your role there? And then I've got a whole list of things I want to run by you.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Um, so as I mentioned, I'm chief marketing officer at Optimum Retailing. We are a retail technology company, and we work with large brick and mortar retailers who have hundreds, sometimes thousands of stores, and we help them create more dynamic retail uh environments by leveraging their data and different uh sources of data to create highly dynamic plans, planograms, digital signage that are you know, what we call sort of self-optimizing so that their stores really adjust to the needs of their consumers and give them the best experience while making it easy for retailers to do more with less, which is what we know uh pretty much every retailer is struggling with these days.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So I know the answer to this question. We're gonna put it out there anyway, just for further clarification. But is optimum retailing a technology provider, an integrator, an advisor? Where in the role set does optimum retailing fit?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I really like that question because uh I'd almost say all of the above. So we are a technology platform, um, and our platform really can integrate with whatever a retailer already has. So often they will have um, you know, ERP systems, various other systems, and so we're really good at integrating no matter what they have. Um, but what we really do is we will work with different functional areas from merchandising, visual merchandising, marketing, store operations. And no matter what their challenge is, we likely have something that will help. And so our clients will often use us in different ways depending on what their challenges are. Um, but we uh we can integrate with whatever processes and systems they already have. Um, and the platform is agnostic across a variety of different areas. Our partnership model is one that uh we're actually really proud of. It's very high touch, we are highly engaged. And so the point about being an advisor, we do, you know, take a very vested interest in the success of our clients. And so that collaborative um relationship that might sometimes be advisory is is really important to us as well.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for that. As it turns out, it's not an easy answer, is it?
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, all of the above is um is sometimes just the right, the right answer.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. And in this case, it's not just an easy answer, it's the real answer. Yeah. So one of the things I've most enjoyed about our conversations um is comes from the fact that optimum retailing sees the entire retail operation. You have a view to end-to-end processes, the problems and hurdles, the opportunities, the technology gaps, the um service gaps from end to end. And I think that's a pretty unique perspective. There aren't a lot of companies that really get that, and there are a lot of people that sit atop that whole kind of series of stacks that get that perspective. So um the last time we spoke, uh, I thought that was fascinating because you have that perspective. So I'd like to kind of jump right into that, if we may.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and thank you for bringing that up because I, you know, I think that the most important thing that we can provide our clients with because of that purview that we have is really deep connected data that they likely can't get from other sources, right? A lot of their insights and sales information and so on and so forth will cover a store, but they won't necessarily know what's actually happening in that store in that moment that's driving those results. And because we have that that layer of insight across all of those different areas, as you say, but really deeply into the store environment, we're able to give them that additional uh insight that they can ultimately use through our platform to create better experiences.
SPEAKER_00:So uh your team and I exchanged a handful of emails and some materials in advance of this conversation. Um, one of which was research that indicated that there's a split between, I would just say, the activity of shoppers tightening their spending and then what the retail mood is, if you will. And that's that's a really interesting divergence there. That that's not a common phenomenon. Can you give us some insights into that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I think all bets are off a little bit right now with understanding how people feel in this current economic environment. We're seeing um a variety of sometimes conflicting signals uh that make it a bit hard to pinpoint exactly what is going on. But you know, what the this shift that I think, or the split that uh that we're seeing, I think if I can sort of sum it up, it really captures a mood of cautious optimism, which I'm an optimist, so I I always like to err on the side of optimism, but I but I think that this is this is a real sentiment that people are feeling. You know, um it was just I read data that uh this morning that said that spending at US retailers jumped 0.6% last month, which was much higher than economic economists were predicting, um, which was uh 0.2. So that's like triple basically what they were predicting, which is great, more spending. Um but we do know based on our poll data that a third of consumers are tightening their wallets. Uh, a third of them actually are spending more, but the other third is holding steady. So we really have this split a third, a third, a third. And what that tells us more than anything is that there isn't an average shopper anymore. You can't just create a store or a marketing campaign or a merchandising plan for your average shopper. They don't exist. They're they are as nuanced as the rest of the world is. Uh, and I think for heading into 2026, um, because really it's you know, we're we're we're getting close, what what that's signifying to me is that retail is going to continue to be volatile. But within that volatility, uh, there's opportunity. There really is opportunity. And in order to tap into that opportunity, what retailers need to do is develop a deeper understanding of who their customers are, who is shopping at every store, and then look at adapting on a store-by-store basis. So rather than blanket strategies, they need to localize their stores in order to resonate with their shoppers. And if they can adopt this sort of model of flexibility and responsiveness, that that's really where the competitive edge lies for retailers going forward.
SPEAKER_00:I want to go back to the data that you referred to, and which is uh, although conflicting data, it's consistent across everything. I think you and I are both seeing. Um, you know, there are segments of the shopping population that are pulling back. There are segments that are still spending in a healthy way. Do you see, based on the data that comes through offering retailing, is there any pattern that's discernible there that retailers should be looking at? Is this strictly just a function of uh income levels? Is it the higher income levels that are seeing no problem? We're just gonna keep spending as usual, and the lower income levels are maybe pulling back a little bit, or are there different dynamics at play?
SPEAKER_01:Well, you touched on a very uh relevant and timely piece of data that also just came out that said that Americans in the top 10% of income bracket are spending about 50%, make up about 50% of total consumer spending, right? So 10% are doing that 50% of spending. And that means that uh anybody who's in the rest of the 90% of the income bracket are maybe feeling a bit more of the squeeze. That's where we're finding more of that caution. But when we looked at our data, we saw that 72% of customers had made an unplanned in-store purchase in the past month. And, you know, this is like discretionary spending. This is, you know, everything beyond the basics and that fund money or, you know, extra pocket money that you might have that is, you know, really when we look at customers tightening their wallets or deciding to spend more, you know, this is this is the bucket of of money that we talk about. So we saw 72% of customers make those unplanned purchases. Now, I I don't have data to tell you was that a large purchase, was that a small purchase, but you know, what what what it's showing is that they want, I mean, I I think customers still want to feel those moments of joy and reward when they're shopping. And if if if they can walk into a retail environment where they can see something that sparks that that joy within them that allows them to feel like they are, you know, being emotionally satisfied, that they're rewarding themselves, that they, it's, you know, something that they deserve, um, then that that obviously helps them be able to tap into that and and fill that bucket uh that they that they have in themselves. And you know, I I like to think of it as you know, these these little impulse purchases are like self-care, right? It's something that I do that's good for me. And we are really in a time where people need that. They really need to tap into self-care, they need to be taking care of themselves. And I think these little discretionary purchases, which are prevalent across a large number of consumers, are really helping them do that.
SPEAKER_00:If you dig into this a little bit, and I couldn't help myself, you know, going a certain amount of rabbit holing here through it and just trying to see what I could figure out here. Do you do you have a sense of what's causing the tension between shopper stress and enjoyment in store? And then further, what can retailers do to make that experience feel easier rather than more, I don't know, whatever you want to call it. I'm gonna say louder.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, like our our our poll data did show that that people are finding uh shopping stressful. I don't think it's shopping itself that's stressful, though. I think it's more likely the store environments that are stressful. You know, I think we can all imagine walking into a store that feels overwhelming. Uh inventory is, you know, you're expecting to walk in to find something, it's not there, shelves are a mess, uh, maybe the signage, wayfinding, you know, doesn't align. Um, you know, you're confused walking around them. Uh, I've been going to different grocery stores lately, and every time I get to one, I feel like I have to orient myself because I don't necessarily know how this grocer has set up their their stores. And, you know, that so I think the stress comes from that and the friction and tension really comes from customers not feeling comfortable within a retail environment. And the, you know, I think, you know, to your question about what retailers can do to to improve this, is really look at not doing more, not more noise, not more signage, but simplicity, seamlessness, creating environments that feel calm and intuitive, um, and really align to the needs of those customers. So that they feel like when they walk into a store, it's effortless because that sensory overload is like that's not cutting it anymore. So I think that is it's the challenge and again the opportunity.
SPEAKER_00:I have um this is purely anecdotal. There is literally no data to support what I'm about to say. Um, and that is, you know, I think one of the most stressful factors in shopping um comes from it's a byproduct of retailers doing a really good job. And that is, you know, a store that's just filled with people, like, you know, the aisles are jam-packed, you're bumping shoulders, you can't get your cart through, whatever. Uh, you know, I don't care how good your signage is or your wayfinding or your product collection or the house, you know, that kind of a thing uh tends to be kind of a universal, in my view, um, a universally accepted, kind of stressful situation. And um I've spoken with other retailers before that that have acknowledged that issue, but it's at it's at odds with their entire reason for being, which is to get more customers in the store.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And um, so I guess I I would love to hear how Ottimum Retailing views that uh that conundrum because it's it's not just a matter of how many people you have in a store at a given time. It's really a matter of, again, in my view, flow. What are those customers doing? Are they finding their way in a kind of um you know flexible, sensible, um, easy fashion? Does does optimal retailing have a view to that? And then what are your thoughts on other ways retailers can solve for it?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I I think it comes down to knowing who your customers are. So I'll give you my anecdotal um view of that, which is you know, you get these retailers that um, and I'm not gonna name any names, they're hugely successful, but you uh, you know, they're they're um sort of off-price retailers, and you walk into their stores, um, and the racks are overwhelming. You know, they maybe have a few sizes of of an item, but it's not sort of an extensive line. And those stores make me very uncomfortable. Like it's just it's overwhelming, it's too much. But they are the people who love that. They love the hunt, they love the the savings, they love, you know, everything that that's in there. And so, you know, I think it really does come down to knowing your audience. And again, this goes to localization, right? When when you can have a better sense of who your customers are, and I'm sure all these retailers have done you know demographic research, but then understanding what's actually happening in the store environment, understanding you know, traffic patterns through things like heat mapping, uh, when you can analyze sales patterns based on knowing from a planogram which items are selling in which zones of a store. Maybe one store has put them near the front and they're selling better, and other stores put them at the back. You know, those additional layers of insight help you understand your customers, understand, you know, how people are responding to your stores and allow you to optimize them accordingly. So, you know, it it's that it's that idea of bringing in that all of that data and all of that insight and then layering it on with creative thinking, right? So you're you're tapping into real-time data and then you're using it to really adapt your stores to what customers need. It could be as you know, sort of um as niche a detail as making sure that you know you understand upcoming weather patterns and you know, the big storms coming, you're putting all your rain stuff at the front. Uh, you've got a, you know, you're in a city where there's you know great sports teams and there's a big game, and you put those your the team colors in your front window. There's really like nuanced details you can do to make sure you're resonating with your audience. But if you don't have that data and that insight, and more importantly, if you don't have the mechanisms in place to act on it, um, and act on it, you know, fairly quickly and flexibly, then that's I think where you're gonna fall short.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So again, not an easy answer, but but a good one. Know your customer, know their patterns, know their preferences.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, the uh the research that um that we I'm sure we've both seen recently points to strengths in certain categories and weaknesses in others. And um when I was preparing for this conversation, I couldn't help but wonder uh because of the way uh Optimum operates, because of the data that you see from all these different kinds of retailers, uh there takeaways that the retailers who are kind of experiencing you know the weaknesses right now, are there takeaways that they can learn from the the categories that are actually winning right now?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but but really in this case, like you know, imitation is really what's going to help you get ahead. Uh we just did a a workshop at a recent conference about the importance of um adapting to win and using the success stories coming out of retailers who might not be in your purview because they're not in your category but are but are achieving great success. Uh for example, we have a large uh telco that we work with that was able to leverage our platform, Realgram. Uh, Realgram, just to give you a little bit of background on it, it creates uh automated dynamic planograms that adjust based on the data that you feed into it. So it could be inventory levels, it could be your sales performance, localized insights, and Realogram will adjust your planograms accordingly. Each store gets a unique one based on their specific data, and it's easier for the in store teams to execute it. But the Increase in sales, where they might have they sort of forecast a 1 to 2% increase in sales from using Realgram to do their planograms, and they saw a uh upwards of 17% in one of their stores increase in sales. So, I mean, that's something that is not uh just for telco companies and and retailers to adopt. So we're speaking at another conference next week where we are going to be presenting this case study again to apparel retailers to help them see that, you know, look beyond your your category and and find the use cases. It's not about the the vertical necessarily, it's about the use case and how you can apply it. Uh, you know, there are other things that that you can do here is, you know, when when you think about, let's talk about who's winning and who's not, right? People are always going to buy groceries, people are gonna invest in their health. But uh from our poll data, you know, we saw that clothing brands, electronic brands, um, restaurants, things like that are where discretionary spending, you know, might be a little bit tighter. And, you know, I think the thing here that those categories can look to the other categories that are winning to learn is that when customers are spending selectively, you really have to appeal to them emotionally. You have to have something that's going to make them think, yeah, that's actually really important for me in my life. And you know, if you're thinking about a pair of shoes or, you know, a new phone, those things aren't frivolous. You know, they can really mean a lot to people. And so, how do you connect with your customers to make sure that they are seeing your products uh in a way that that's personal to them and will help them justify that spend.
SPEAKER_00:I love what you just said there. And I think there's so much to talk about, just uh kind of peel back the onions on that idea. And if I understood correctly, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the in order to become essential, if you're a non-essential purchase categorically, is to become emotionally essential. Emotionally critical. And um I think so. You're nodding, you can't see this because it's audio, but um, that implies I I may have come close to getting that right. The um and if that is correct, I think that's a giant lesson for brand marketers in this environment to understand that though you may be marketing a, you know, call it non-essential right now, um, you still have opportunities if you can create that emotional bond, even that emotional need, if you will.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think the thing that catches people is that the word emotion, I think, makes you think, oh, it's gotta be sad or it's gotta be um, you know, really like emotional on a deeper level. But emotion in this case might be more like practicality. Oh, you know what? If I if I bought those new pair of shoes, then you know, my feet wouldn't hurt at work, my back wouldn't hurt, I'd get home, I'd be more emotionally available to my kids. You know, that's uh a way of making a product that might not be an essential, an emotional um imperative to somebody. So I think as long as you have a uh a clear understanding of what emotion can and should mean when you're looking at this from a brand perspective, uh, from a marketing perspective, um, and know how to tap into those different types, whether it's practicality, whether it's based on lifestyle, whatever that emotional category is, then I think you'll find that way to be really relevant and make that purchase seem necessary.
SPEAKER_00:I kind of want to pull that out and just say, listen, if if you haven't paid attention to anything else in this in this episode, please hear that because that is that's worth money, and that's coming from a very data-based perspective. So thank you for that. I'll call that out. That's that's that's really important. So let me ask you this. What is, in your view, the single most important mindset shift, unless that's the one we just talked about, um, that retail leaders need to turn in-store strategy into profitability this coming year?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so we haven't uh maybe we've touched on it thematically, but not I'll I'll emphasize it here. Stores as static environments. Stores should be living ecosystems that are adaptable to the needs of their customers. And I think what happens far too often is that retailers create these blanket strategies and they might say, no, no, no, we were regionalized for that market, and you know, we were we we understood that you know this market was maybe different than that market, but that doesn't mean that each store was its own sort of living, breathing environment that connected with its unique shopping base. And I that to me is the most important shift that I would you know talk to retail leaders about changing again, going into 2026 and beyond. It's this notion of thinking dynamically and recognizing that the tools are there to actually make this easy and and more so than ever. I mean, AI, the game changer that it is, is one of the biggest benefits is that you can do things like this now faster, easier, with fewer resources. You know, we have a client with 11,000 stores, they have one person creating new planograms weekly for those 11,000 stores because they leverage technology the right way and they recognize that every store is a snowflake, as they say. But you know, if you think that every store is gonna have a different floor plan, it's gonna have a different uh location, it's gonna have probably different fixtures and you know, so don't just treat it structurally like they're different, but but really understand that each each store needs to offer a different experience to the customers who shop there.
SPEAKER_00:They are in fact their own small ecosystem.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Like everything drives them. Well, Justine, um I'm I'm wrestling with do we really do we explode this conversation and just keep rolling, or do we contain it and save something for the next time? But um I guess there's there's just so much to talk about here. Um but I want to I want to re-emphasize the the the thing you said, which I've not heard anybody else articulate, I've heard lots of people dance around this idea, but nobody has stated it as clearly as as I think you just did, which is that if you're if you're running a category that may not be considered uh technically uh critical, if it's not a necessary purchase, and you are experiencing some sort of um, you know, I would just say weakness in your marketplace right now, you still have an opportunity by creating and emphasizing the emotionality uh behind the reasoning for that product, and it is almost always there. I don't care if you are, you know, considered a commodity, if you look closely enough, there's always some emotionality attached, and you just have to leverage that. So thanks for that.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks. Yeah, and you know, it's again, it's easier than ever. Technology is there to make this possible and not seem insurmountable. And you know, that's I think the the the takeaways. Marry those two together, and you're just you know, you're not gonna see those challenges for much longer.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, noted. Well, Justine, thanks a million for this. I really appreciate it. I look forward to every time we get to do this. I'm not sure if I'll see you before NRF because that's just the way these schedules tend to run, but I'm looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_01:Likewise. Thanks so much, Mike.
