Mind the Gap: Exploring Shopping Preferences Across Fashion Retail Channels

Over the course of the last decade, online retailers have demonstrated that knowledge about customer preferences and shopping patterns is an important asset for running a successful business. For example, customer preferences and shopping histories are the foundation for recommender systems that support the search for relevant products to buy online. With the increasing adoption of modern technologies, traditional retailers are able to collect similar data about customer behavior in their stores. For example, smart fitting rooms allow to track interactions of customers with products beyond the scope of a traditional retail store. In this paper we explore how customers of a large international fashion retailer buy products online and in brick-and-mortar stores, and uncover significant differences between the two domains. In particular, we find that online customers frequently focus on buying products from one specific category, whereas customers in brick-and-mortar stores often buy a more diverse range of product types. Further, we investigate products that customers take into fitting rooms, and we find that they frequently deviate from, and complement purchases. Finally, we demonstrate how our findings impact practical applications, illustrated using recommender systems, and discuss how shopping baskets from different domains can be leveraged.