For decades, retailers have tried to resolve these contradictions through sharper targeting and clearer positioning. But they’ve been solving the wrong puzzle.
As we heard at Shoptalk Europe, the real challenge isn’t eliminating consumer complexity. It’s mastering complexity commerce.
Over three days of presentations, from Spanish fashion retailer Tendam to British luxury department store Harrods, a new retail doctrine emerged: Competitive advantage lies in delivering hyper-personalization and multi-relevance, not simplification.
The complexity explosion
The scale of the challenge is enormous.
Research presented at the conference showed that 44% of European consumers regularly try new brands, despite expressing loyalty preferences. Product discovery cycles have accelerated by 300%, while purchase consideration time has also increased. Traditional recession behaviors no longer apply. Consumers are increasing spending on big-ticket items while cutting discretionary expenses.
Take the beauty industry: Product lifecycles have shrunk from five years in 1990 to just one month today. Flaconi, a German beauty ecommerce platform, found that historical sales data predicts only 30% of future demand. The remaining 70% comes from real-time consumer behavior, celebrity endorsements and brand campaigns beyond its own marketing.
Over three years, Flaconi reduced unhealthy stock from 28% to 3% — the best in its category — by practicing complexity commerce rather than resisting consumer multiplicity.
Human-augmented expertise
Instead of replacing human expertise with AI, successful retailers are using it to augment human capabilities:
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Manor Switzerland implemented conversational analytics that allow business users to “chat with their data,” automatically generating SQL queries while human experts interpret insights.
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LVMH created an “AI Factory” with more than 40 algorithms shared across its 75 luxury brands, yet the company maintains a “human-centered, human-in-the-loop” philosophy.
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Most tellingly, Harrods reports that telephone sales generate 2.5 times more revenue than ecommerce because human expertise creates value digital channels can’t replicate.
“We’ve realized that you should never just use one model,” said Nicolas Kröger, Manor’s Chief Digital Transformation Officer. “It’s a chain of models combining their individual strengths that makes the use cases truly powerful.”
The key is knowing when each approach adds value.
Retail metamorphosis
The organizational implications are profound. Ayla Ziz, Danone’s Chief Customer Officer, estimated that “50% of current jobs will be obsolete within five years” — not due to automation, but because understanding complex consumer behavior requires fundamentally new skillsets.
Companies are embracing cross-functional initiatives, dismantling silos and aligning teams around customer outcomes. Canada Goose is a prime example. The company redefined retail roles as brand ambassadors who test products in extreme environments and educate customers about polar bear conservation. These experiences lead to measurable conversion gains.
Similarly, Harrods has mastered “emotional service stories,” forging lifetime customer relationships through meaningful problem-solving. The result: Harrods sells 50% of all UK fragrances over £150.
Data orchestration at scale
Sophisticated data strategies underpin this shift.
Spanish retailer Tendam moved customers from an annual spend of €27 (non-loyalty) to €188 (omnichannel users) by shifting from brand silos to customer segments and integrating 26 million loyalty members across 240-plus brands.
Mars Snacking, drawing on 134 years of checkout merchandising expertise, now applies impulse psychology to create “TikTokified” digital transaction zones.
Consumer packaged goods companies are navigating similar terrain. Diageo reports digital channels influence 48% of total sales despite accounting for just 5% of direct transactions, due to regulatory restrictions. This prompted the spirits giant to invest in sophisticated attribution modeling focused on influence over conversion — crucial as AI agents begin to make autonomous purchases.
The orchestration dividend
The early signs are promising:
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Tendam now attributes 75% of sales to loyalty members while expanding across multiple markets.
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Rituals opened one new store daily while growing online revenue to 20% of the total.
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Mars Snacking posted three straight years of double-digit growth — what its president calls “brilliant execution over innovation novelty.”
Still, challenges persist. Orchestrating multiple strategies at once demands new leadership models and faster decision-making. Tech integration must support architectures that evolve with shifting consumer behavior.
Most importantly, it requires letting go of the illusion that consumer behavior can ever be made fully predictable.
The complexity advantage
Retailers in Barcelona were wrestling with a broader truth: In an age of information abundance, human behavior becomes more layered, not less. Brands that master complexity commerce and develop sophisticated strategies for complex consumers are discovering tremendous new advantages. They’re learning how to make complexity profitable.
The goal is no longer to simplify consumers, but to serve them in all their contradictions.
In a world where customers are simultaneously loyal and experimental, sustainable and indulgent, premium-seeking and price-conscious, success will belong to those equipped to turn complexity into competitive edge.
The future of retail is strategically multifaceted.
Pascal Malotti leads Valtech’s global retail strategy. To learn more about how you can turn retail complexity into a competitive advantage, reach out to Pascal or visit our Retail page.
