What is retail market research?

Retail market research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of data about retail markets, consumers, and competitors. It provides valuable insights that help businesses understand consumer behaviour, market trends, and competitive landscapes to make informed decisions and improve their performance.

What is FMCG market research?

FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) market research is a specialised form of market research that focuses on products with a rapid turnover rate, like food, beverages, toiletries, and household goods. These products are typically consumed or used up quickly, leading to frequent repurchases.

How does STRAT7 utilise data analytics and AI for retail insights?

Market and customer research can: Help businesses identify and capitalise on emerging trends in rapidly-evolving consumer preferences Provide insights into competitors’ strengths, weaknesses and strategies, so companies can differentiate themselves and gain a competitive edge Make demand forecasting more accurate, so businesses can anticipate consumer spending patterns in challenging economic conditions Inform more effective marketing strategies that resonate with increasingly-fractured audience segments

What key challenges do retail and FMCG companies face that market research can address?

Retail and FMCG companies face numerous challenges in today’s dynamic marketplace, including shifting consumer preferences, digital transformation, supply chain complexities, and sustainability demands. Market research helps address these challenges by providing insights into changing shopping behaviors, optimizing omnichannel strategies, improving inventory management, and identifying sustainable practices that resonate with consumers while maintaining profitability.

What methodologies does STRAT7 employ for retail and consumer goods market research?

Ethnographic research, cultural insights and semiotics all help us refine your messaging to resonate more effectively with your ideal customers; behavioural analysis and customer journey mapping provide insights into how to improve your operations to be more customer-centric, and unstructured data synthesis, surveys and polls and insight communities can help you better understand the impact of any changes you make.

How does STRAT7 help retailers adapt to changing consumer behaviours and preferences?

STRAT7 offers customer research solutions to understand changing consumer behaviours, such as purchasing habits, value perceptions, and sustainability concerns. We can help develop targeted marketing campaigns and optimise sales strategies based on specific customer segments and their evolving preferences, and we can provide insights for optimising offerings and developing new products that resonate with changing customer needs and tastes.

What types of retail and FMCG organisations does STRAT7 work with?

STRAT7 works with a diverse range of retail and FMCG organizations, from global supermarket chains and department stores to specialty retailers and direct-to-consumer brands. Our clients include multinational FMCG companies producing everything from household essentials to premium consumer goods, as well as emerging brands looking to scale their operations and establish market presence.

What differentiates STRAT7's approach to market insights in the retail and consumer goods sectors?

STRAT7 differentiates itself by combining traditional market research with advanced technology and innovative methodologies. We focus on providing actionable insights that drive real business impact. Our insights and strategies combine deep industry expertise with advanced data analytics and AI. This allows us to scrape and analyse vast quantities of information, to uncover hidden patterns and trends that other research firms may miss. At the same time, our experienced customer and market research teams can investigate any global market you wish, providing you a solid foundation and understanding of your prospective customer base, on an incredibly detailed and personal level.

Customer journey mapping agency

Enhance your customer journey with strategic insights

Understand, optimise, and elevate every customer interaction

Customer journey mapping services

Understanding how customers interact with your brand across touchpoints is crucial for growth and loyalty. Customer journey mapping visualizes the entire experience from awareness to advocacy, so you can truly understand the experience customers have with your brand.

STRAT7’s journey mapping combines research with advanced analytics to identify key moments, pain points and opportunities. The insights that we uncover give you the tools to transform experiences and drive measurable improvements to your business results.

What our clients say

"I was impressed with the team’s enthusiasm, sector expertise and level of engagement with the senior leadership team. Their insight and advice have been invaluable in shaping plans and strategy around our target customer."

"What I enjoy about their way of working is that it’s a true partnership from beginning to end. We challenge each other and work out implications and next steps together."

"The insight community platform allows us to keep our finger on the pulse with customers, and feed insights straight back to the business at a fast pace."

"The ideas and concepts that STRAT7 developed as part of the work are helping us structure future thinking on our brand. We’re extremely thankful for their partnership and would certainly work with them again on innovation strategy."

"Our relationship with STRAT7 has been a highly rewarding and collaborative process. We’re extremely happy with the work we’ve done and the results of our joint effort."

"They dig beneath the surface, good at storytelling. They understand our business, allowing them to translate insights into actions and guide us in a way other vendors don’t."

“They act like a total and complete partner, and feel like an extension of our team with their knowledge, expertise, and embeddedness.”

Why customer journey mapping matters

Understanding the path your customers take

Customers engage with brands through various digital and physical touchpoints in complex, unpredictable ways. Understanding these journeys helps improve experiences, build loyalty and increase conversions. Journey mapping reveals friction points and opportunities for meaningful connections.

Traditional methods miss the nuances of actual customer behaviour. Our evidence-based approach combines qualitative depth with quantitative scale to reveal not just what customers do, but why they do it – enabling more effective strategies.

Our approach

At STRAT7, we go beyond simple visualisations to build a strategic framework that helps you take action. Our comprehensive methodology combines deep human insight with advanced analytics to create journey maps that drive real business impact.

Data-driven insights

We blend qualitative and quantitative research to uncover real customer behaviours, emotions and pain points. Our methods range from interviews and ethnographic research to surveys and digital analytics, revealing the true customer experience. Our AI tools analyse unstructured data at scale to capture all valuable insights.

End-to-end journey analysis

From initial awareness to post-purchase engagement, we identify the moments that matter most across the entire customer journey. By examining all interactions and touchpoints, we map both emotional and behavioural experiences. We pinpoint critical decision moments, revealing opportunities to exceed expectations and build stronger relationships.

Segmentation & personalisation

We tailor journey maps to different customer segments, recognising that each group has unique needs. By understanding the specific preferences and pain points of key segments, we help you create personalised experiences that resonate individually. This targeted approach boosts engagement and conversions throughout the customer lifecycle.

AI & predictive modelling

Our advanced analytics and machine learning identify future opportunities and risks, helping you stay ahead of changing customer expectations. We can anticipate shifting behaviours, emerging trends and potential disruptions with our predictive models, enabling proactive strategy adaptation in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Leveraging customer journey mapping for strategic growth

Customer journey mapping alone sets a strong foundation for broader strategic initiatives across your organisation, but when integrated with other research and analytics capabilities, it reveals insights that drive sustainable growth.

At STRAT7, our team helps you translate customer insights into actionable growth strategies, product innovations, and experience enhancements that deliver measurable results across your organisation.

By linking journey insights to KPIs, we help you prioritise investments that impact both customer satisfaction and business performance, ensuring improvements support your strategic goals.

What researching your customer journey can help you with

Understanding the journeys your customers undertake with your company gives you insights that can entirely transform the way you operate. Here’s how our research-led approach delivers tangible benefits:

Identify friction points

Pinpoint exactly where your customers are encountering difficulties, becoming frustrated, or abandoning their journey entirely. Our detailed analysis reveals both obvious and hidden barriers to conversion, so you can prioritise the improvements that will have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction and business performance.

Enhance UX & conversion

Design more intuitive digital and offline experiences based on actual customer behaviour. by mapping reveals how customers navigate through your touchpoints, we can identify opportunities to streamline interactions and create more engaging experiences that guide customers naturally toward purchase decisions.

Improve retention & loyalty

Strengthen customer relationships by delivering value at every stage of their journey. By understanding what drives customer satisfaction and loyalty at different touchpoints, you can make the interactions with your brand more meaningful, building lasting emotional connections that will last with your customers.

Optimise for growth

Use journey insights to refine marketing, sales, and service strategies across your organisation. By understanding how your customers discover, evaluate, and engage with your brand, you can create more effective acquisition campaigns, develop more compelling value propositions, and design service models that anticipate customer needs.

Case studies

Our customer journey mapping expertise has helped businesses across a range of industries transform their customer experience and improve their operations. Here are some examples of how we’ve applied our approach to solve real-world challenges:

Case Study

Skyscanner

Enhancing their traveller first strategy

Case Study

A leading global software giant

Tailoring messaging and optimising product positioning with strat7.ai

Why work with STRAT7 customer journey mapping company?

When you partner with STRAT7 for customer journey mapping, you gain access to a unique combination of research expertise, strategic thinking, and advanced analytics capabilities:

Real-time insights

Our journey mapping is enhanced by AI data scraping and predictive analytics that capture and interpret customer behaviour as it happens. By combining historical data with real-time monitoring, we help you understand not just how customers have interacted with your brand in the past, but how they’re engaging right now.

Integrated approach

We combine research, strategy, and execution to deliver end-to-end solutions. Our multidisciplinary team brings together expertise in market research, customer experience, data analytics, and business strategy to provide a holistic view of your customer journey.

Bespoke solutions

Our solutions are tailored to your business objectives and customer needs, ensuring relevance and impact. We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all approaches to journey mapping. Instead, we customise our methodology, tools, and deliverables to address your specific challenges and opportunities.

Global reach, local presence

With headquarters in cities around the world, we can investigate, analyse and map customer journeys across diverse markets with cultural sensitivity and local insight. This gives us the ability to deliver journey mapping that reflects the true diversity of your customer base, whether you operate in a single market or across multiple regions.

Talk to the team

Stefan Schafer

FAQs

What is customer journey mapping?

Customer journey mapping is a strategic process that visually represents the complete experience a customer has with your brand across all touchpoints and channels. It documents the customer’s actions, thoughts, feelings, and pain points throughout their interaction with your business, from initial awareness through purchase, usage, and beyond, identifying key moments, friction points, and opportunities to enhance the customer experience.

Why is customer journey mapping important?

Customer journey mapping is crucial for businesses today because it provides a customer-centric view of your organisation, revealing gaps between expected and actual customer experiences. This insight helps you align internal teams around customer needs, prioritise improvements that will have the greatest impact on satisfaction and loyalty, and identify opportunities for innovation.

Do businesses have multiple customer journey maps?

Yes, most businesses need multiple customer journey maps to accurately represent different customer segments, product lines, or service offerings. Different customer types often follow distinct pathways when interacting with your brand, with varying needs, expectations, and pain points. On top of this, separate journey maps can be created for different stages of the customer lifecycle (such as acquisition vs. retention) or for specific channels or touchpoints. This segmented approach allows for more targeted improvements and personalised experiences that address the unique needs of different customer groups.

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