From Search to Purchase: Optimising Customer Journeys Across Channels

BY QDegreesPUBLISHED
May. 28, 2025

When customers browse online but buy in store or visit stores only to buy online, businesses often miss the full picture of their buying behaviour. This disconnect leads to lost sales and confused marketing strategies.

Understanding these shifts between digital and physical channels is critical. Concepts like Webrooming and Showrooming reveal how customers move across touchpoints. By combining real customer insights with effective Customer Journey Mapping, companies can better track these behaviours and create smoother, more connected experiences.

Mystery Shopping helps uncover what happens in stores, while Customer Persona Mapping builds clear profiles to tailor strategies that bridge online and offline journeys seamlessly.

Let's look into a scenario of a global retailer using Mystery Shopping to track in-store behaviour while customers research products online. Through in-depth interviews, they uncovered why many preferred to see items physically before buying online. Using persona mapping, they identified key consumer profiles driving Webrooming and Showrooming trends. This insight helped optimise both their online platform and in-store experience, improving the seamless flow across the customer journey stages.

Understanding Cross-Channel Buying Behaviour

● Webrooming: Research online, purchase in store
Many customers prefer to browse products online first to compare options or read reviews. After researching, they visit a physical store to see the product in person and make the purchase. This helps them feel confident before buying.

● Showrooming: Inspect in store, buy online
Some customers visit stores to physically check out products, test quality, or get a feel for the item. But instead of buying there, they complete the purchase online, often looking for better prices or delivery convenience.

● Multiple touchpoints influence buying decisions
Customers don’t follow just one path when shopping. They use a mix of online and offline channels, searching, visiting, comparing, and buying across platforms. Understanding this helps businesses design better customer experiences.

● Customers seek either product experience or convenience
Some shoppers want to touch, try, or see products before buying, while others prioritise speed, price, or ease of purchase. Recognising these preferences helps tailor marketing and sales approaches accordingly.

● Identifying consumer personas based on shopping habits
Grouping customers by their behaviour patterns, like frequent webroomers or showroomers, allows businesses to create targeted strategies. These personas make it easier to meet customer expectations across all channels.

How Persona Mapping Enhances Customer Journey Management

● True In-Store Behaviour
Mystery Shopping lets you observe customers as they shop in real time. It reveals how staff engage with customers, how smooth or difficult the shopping experience is, and any obstacles that might not be obvious from sales data or feedback forms.

● Understanding Customer Mindset
Conducting interviews helps uncover the reasons behind customer actions. It shows what motivates their choices, what concerns they have, and how they feel at different stages of their buying process. This insight is critical for designing better experiences.

● Grouping by Preferences
Persona Mapping sorts customers into groups based on their shopping habits and preferences. By understanding these groups, businesses can develop targeted strategies, promotions, and services that speak directly to different types of customers.

● Following the Customer Journey
Tracking the customer’s path from the moment they think about a product, through searching, visiting a store, making a purchase, and finally receiving the product, provides a complete picture. This helps identify where customers might drop off or face issues.

● Aligning Strategies with Behaviour
Using insights from mystery shopping and persona mapping, companies can fine-tune their marketing, sales, and customer service efforts. Aligning strategies with actual customer behaviour improves satisfaction, loyalty, and overall business performance.

Conclusion:

To stay ahead in today’s retail world, it’s essential to understand how customers move between online and offline experiences. Tools like mystery shopping, primary market research, exit interviews, in-depth interviews, observational studies, and focus group discussions help businesses uncover the real challenges customers face. These methods provide valuable insights into customer behavior and decision-making before, during, and after the purchase. By combining these insights with a deeper understanding of the overall customer journey, businesses can identify areas for improvement and implement changes that matter. This approach leads to better customer experiences, stronger loyalty, and ultimately, improved sales. Aligning strategies with actual customer behaviour allows businesses to close the gaps that might otherwise result in missed opportunities.