INTERNATIONAL. Travel retailers must identify the key communication touch points to engage with shopping planners not only before they enter the store, but also before they travel.
That was the key message from the Duty Free World Council (DFWC) in reviewing the results of its KPI Monitor for the third quarter of 2019.
The report, which was produced for the DFWC by Swiss research agency m1nd-set, focuses on shopping planners and strategies to engage with them to increase penetration and conversion. Some 75% of shoppers plan their purchases prior to travel, according to the DFWC Monitor.
While the majority – 52% – of shoppers who plan their purchases do so with only few if any ideas of what they will purchase, the remaining 23% plan their purchases with a specific idea of which product or brand they will buy once in the duty free shop, DFWC said.
“The latest DFWC KPI Monitor brings to the fore an important key to increasing penetration and conversion,” said DFWC President Sarah Branquinho. “With three quarters of shoppers planning their purchase, but less than one fifth of shoppers noticing touch points before their trip, travel retail marketers need to identify the most effective pre-trip touch points to reach these shopping planners and integrate these into their media planning strategy.”
M1nd-set Owner and CEO Peter Mohn commented: “The Monitor also demonstrates that the pre-trip communication on the duty free offer has a significant impact on both customer expectations and satisfaction with the shopping experience. It’s all the more important therefore to pay particular attention to these touch points and take into account how different customer segments engage with the various touch points to avoid standardising the marketing message.
“Given that travellers are increasingly drawing up a list of their preferred brands for shopping during their trip, prior to departure, marketers need to ensure those who are planning are exposed to the brands across touch points prior to travel. The higher the exposure the higher the probability that the ‘specific planner’ shopper segment will convert.”
The KPI Monitor is compiled from more than 4,000 interviews with shoppers globally and was conducted in September for the third quarter of 2019. It is computed by aggregating the satisfaction scores on all aspects of the visit to the duty free shops and weighting these according to their impact on overall satisfaction.
The Q3 Monitor shows the global average for customer satisfaction has increased by one point since Q2 2019, with the Middle East and Africa experiencing the strongest increase, up from 66% in Q2 to 68%. Duty free shops are considered to be a great place to purchase gifts by around four out of ten shoppers, according to the Monitor. The percentage of shoppers purchasing for gifting remained constant over the past quarter at 43%.
The Monitor also tracks airport passenger growth with data from m1nd-set’s Business 1ntelligence Service (B1S) in partnership with the International Air Transport Association (IATA). It shows that Asia Pacific and Europe both experienced above average air traffic growth, at +5% and +3.9%, respectively.
Global traffic has increased by +3.7% to 979 million passengers on the same period in 2018 (end of Q3). All other regions posted below average growth, with air traffic rising by +2.7% in the Middle East/Africa, +2.3% in North America, and +0.7% in South America.
