Innovator Intelligence: Spring Marketplace – Leveraging Real-Time Purchase Data to Provide Robust CRM and Marketing Across Online and In-Store Retail

Executive Summary

This report forms part of our Innovator Intelligence series, which focuses on emerging companies that are disrupting traditional retail and fueling innovation across the retail value chain.

Spring Marketplace (Spring) has created a platform that helps retailers extend their existing customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing efforts beyond traditional methods. Through partnerships with payment networks (Visa, Mastercard and American Express), Spring connects consumers’ payment cards to customized retail loyalty programs, enabling retailers to track how their digital marketing affects in-store transactions and tailor their future efforts accordingly.

• Omnichannel marketing is a priority for retailers, but most CRM solutions do not enable the tracking of real-time purchase data in physical stores, where roughly 80% of sales still occur. Historically, the trouble has been connecting data from different channels, devices and departments. When customer data are fragmented, so, too, are customer profiles and marketing activities.
• Spring’s solution enables client companies’ online and store operations to work together to increase overall customer engagement and drive revenue. Every store transaction and website visit is an opportunity to use smart messages and incentives to increase patronage across channels.
• For one national retailer, Spring surfaced that only 6% of its customers shop both online and in-store, but that those who shop both channels are worth 3.5 times more,meaning there is a sizable, $165 million revenue opportunity in engaging the other 94%.
• Spring provides two core feature sets: Customer Insights and Customer Engagement. The first provides clients a complete view of customers’ spending behavior in-store and online. The second turns these analytics into targeted marketing strategies in the form of real-time messaging and incentives.