David Green’s pick: ASOS
In our International Retail Index, ASOS ranked at number 3, beating the likes of Apple, John Lewis and Aldi. ASOS is now synonymous with great fashion items at great prices, and over the last few years expanded into countries globally, including the US, France, Spain and Germany.
According to David Green, since starting out in 2000, ASOS has really taken advantage of technology that allows its customers to enjoy a frictionless experience. This includes type-ahead address verification, which enables customers to enter their address quickly and easily while ensuring the data ASOS captures in its checkout is clean and accurate.
The global retailer has also placed a lot of emphasis on GDPR, making sure that data is captured in a compliant way, but has found the balance between being compliant and offering a a great customer experience.
Ian McGarrigle’s pick: Sephora
Ian McGarrigle’s top pick was Sephora, which ranks at number 8 in the Retail Index. The Chairman of of the World Retail Congress’s reason for selecting the French brand is that Sephora is the World Retail Congress Retailer of the Year 2018. He states that the company, which has been around for 4 decades, grasped international opportunity, seeing the potential it offers.
The company, which now operates in 34 countries, including the US, Italy and China, seized the digital opportunity and listens carefully to what its customers want. This led to a new, youthful customer-base, and continues to grow thanks to the company’s dynamic approach.
Sephora has adopted location intelligence to analyse the needs of their shoppers, and personalise the customer journey both in-store and online. Its assistant feature on the Facebook Messenger app allows customers to book makeovers in a nearby store, quickly and easily.
Robert Gregory’s pick: Walmart
Global Research Director for Planet Retail RNG, Robert Gregory selected number 9 on the Retail Index - Walmart. But what was the reason behind this choice? Well, while Walmart is famous for its physical presence, with 30 different markets around the world, over the past few years it has been reinventing itself as a digital player, scaling back its physical presence.
Walmart has also been moving digitally into fast growing markets such as China and India, and, as a consequence of this, have joined forces with Flipkart, which has a strong customer-base in India. This partnership is likely to see benefits for both parties.
Discover the complete top 30 international retailers in the Loqate International Retail Index.
