Dunnhumby: Retail Media Has a Shopper Problem

Retail media has become one of the fastest-growing segments in commerce, but new research from Dunnhumby suggests many retailers are still designing media strategies around advertising inventory rather than shopper needs. The next phase of retail media growth will belong to retailers that use customer data to create more relevant, personalised and valuable shopping experiences.

Few parts of retail have grown faster over the past three years.

It is generating billions in new revenue, attracting increasing brand investment and rapidly becoming a strategic priority for retailers around the world.

Yet one critical perspective has often been missing from the conversation.

The shopper.

That was the focus of a recent discussion between Alex Rezvan, Founder of The Retail Podcast, and Michael Schuh, Global Head of Media at Dunnhumby, exploring new consumer research into how shoppers actually experience retail media.

The research, based on a survey of 3,000 grocery shoppers across the United States and the United Kingdom, was published in April 2026 under the title "Retail Media: Technology, Trust and Retail Experiences Reshaping Shopper Decisions".

The findings suggest the industry's next phase of growth will depend less on launching new advertising channels and more on delivering the relevance, trust and personalisation consumers increasingly expect.

Shoppers Trade Data for Real Value

One of the research's most significant findings is that 91% of shoppers are comfortable having their transactional data captured by retailers, provided they receive meaningful value in return.

That represents a fundamental shift in consumer expectations.

For years, retailers focused on collecting first-party data through loyalty programmes, mobile apps and customer accounts. The assumption was that convenience or occasional discounts would be enough to encourage participation.

Today's shoppers expect much more.

Personalisation is no longer viewed as a premium feature.

It is now a baseline expectation.

The trust gap is also stark. Seven in ten shoppers say they are likely to trust personalised advertising, compared with just a quarter who trust generic advertising.

Schuh compares this evolution to recommendation engines developed by platforms such as Netflix and Spotify.

Consumers increasingly expect retailers to understand what they buy, anticipate what they are likely to need next and reduce the effort required to find it.

Instead of navigating thousands of products, shoppers want retailers to surface the options that are most relevant to them.

Purchase Data Is Retail's Competitive Edge

The research also highlights where personalisation creates the greatest value.

Shoppers respond most positively when recommendations are based on their own purchasing behaviour rather than broad demographic assumptions.

Traditional advertising often relies on demographic data such as age, gender and location.

Retailers possess something considerably more powerful.

They know what customers actually buy.

That gives retailers the ability to identify shopping patterns, understand brand loyalty, anticipate replenishment cycles and recognise changing customer preferences.

Whether recommending products that complement previous purchases or reminding shoppers to replenish household essentials, behavioural data enables retail media to become genuinely useful rather than simply promotional.

For retailers, the opportunity is clear.

The more closely media reflects actual shopping behaviour, the more valuable it becomes for both shoppers and brands.

Relevance Beats Discounts for Shoppers

Price promotions remain an important driver of purchasing decisions.

However, Dunnhumby's research suggests promotions become significantly more effective when combined with personalisation.

A personalised offer delivered to the right customer at the right moment is far more effective than a generic promotion shown to everyone.

Schuh explains that relevant offers create familiarity and urgency because shoppers recognise that the recommendation reflects their own preferences rather than another untargeted advertisement.

This fundamentally changes the role of retail media.

Instead of interrupting the shopping journey, it becomes part of helping customers make better purchasing decisions.

Consistency Across Touchpoints Builds Trust

Consumers rarely complete their shopping journey in a single channel.

They browse retailer websites, search online, receive email offers, interact through mobile apps, discover products on social media and ultimately visit physical stores.

The research suggests shoppers increasingly expect these experiences to feel connected.

Consistent messaging across digital and physical channels builds familiarity, reinforces trust and improves campaign effectiveness.

It also suggests that creative quality plays a larger role than many retailers realise.

While retail media conversations often focus on audience targeting, attribution and measurement, shoppers continue responding to compelling creative, clear messaging and consistent brand experiences.

The strongest retail media campaigns combine precise targeting with creative that customers genuinely remember.

Shoppers Want Helpful Tech, Not Gimmicks

The research also explored consumer attitudes towards emerging retail technologies.

Shoppers showed the strongest interest in technologies that solve practical problems today rather than futuristic concepts.

Personalised pricing ranked highest, with 64% of shoppers identifying it as a practice that enhances their experience. In-store screens providing relevant product suggestions were preferred by 56%, and tailored health recommendations by 54%.

These all ranked higher than newer concepts such as agentic commerce and wearable retail technology, which generated less excitement among shoppers, reflecting where consumers are on the adoption curve rather than a rejection of innovation entirely.

The findings reinforce a broader lesson.

Innovation succeeds when it removes friction.

Customers are less interested in sophisticated technology than they are in shopping experiences that feel simpler, faster and more relevant.

First-Party Data Must Show Shoppers Value

Retailers frequently describe first-party data as one of their greatest strategic assets.

Schuh argues that customers only recognise its value when it visibly improves their shopping experience.

Every retailer has a unique customer base, market position and operating model.

There is no universal blueprint for retail media success.

However, every strategy should begin with the same question.

How does this make shopping better?

When data helps shoppers discover products more easily, receive more relevant recommendations and complete purchases with greater confidence, everyone benefits.

Better customer experiences ultimately translate into larger baskets, increased loyalty and stronger retail performance.

Fragmented Data Holds Retail Media Back

As retail media businesses mature, operational complexity is becoming one of the industry's biggest challenges.

Many retailers continue to manage e-commerce platforms, loyalty programmes, advertising systems and customer analytics separately.

Schuh argues these data sources can no longer operate independently.

Without connected data, retailers struggle to build accurate audiences, measure campaign performance and deliver consistent customer experiences.

Fragmented systems also create operational inefficiencies that make it increasingly difficult for retail media businesses to scale.

The next generation of retail media will depend as much on connected data as it does on advertising inventory.

That fragmentation is the same barrier senior marketers described when they argued that retail media must break its silo, and it shapes how Unlimitail, Douglas and Nectar360 describe retail media's next chapter.

Putting Shoppers at the Centre of Media

One of the strongest themes emerging from the discussion is that retail media must evolve beyond selling advertising space.

The industry's first chapter focused on building retail media networks.

The next chapter will focus on improving the shopping experience.

Schuh believes retailers that fail to deliver relevance and personalisation risk losing customers to competitors that do.

Modern shoppers are exposed to thousands of commercial messages every day.

Generic advertising is increasingly filtered out.

Only messages grounded in genuine customer understanding are likely to capture attention.

The challenge is therefore becoming less about launching new media formats and more about improving the quality of every customer interaction.

In-Store Is the Biggest Untapped Opportunity

Perhaps the most striking insight from the discussion concerns physical retail.

According to Schuh, around 90% of customer engagement and transactions still happen in physical stores, particularly across grocery and other core retail sectors. Yet less than 1% of retail media investment in the United States is directed towards in-store media.

He describes the imbalance as fundamentally backwards.

If stores remain the primary environment where purchasing decisions are made, retailers have a significant opportunity to create more relevant, personalised and engaging in-store media experiences, an argument that echoes retail media's pivot towards outcomes rather than impressions.

That does not simply mean installing more digital screens.

It means using customer data to help shoppers navigate stores more efficiently, discover relevant products and make more confident purchasing decisions.

Connected Journeys Define the Next Chapter

Looking ahead, Schuh believes the industry's biggest opportunity lies in orchestration rather than expansion.

Many retailers now operate multiple advertising technology platforms, each functioning independently.

"If you've got six different ad tech partners as part of your retail media business and none of them talk to each other," he said, "how difficult are you making it on an advertiser to actually buy from you and to create a consistent customer experience for your shoppers?"

Without stronger integration, it becomes difficult to deliver seamless customer experiences or provide advertisers with a unified retail media platform.

Schuh also raised a question he believes the industry has not yet fully confronted: consolidation. With brands and agencies now having to invest across dozens of different retail media businesses and learn the intricacies of each, the question of whether the market will consolidate into networks or aggregated platforms is one he expects to define the next phase of the industry's development.

The retailers that succeed will be those capable of connecting customer data, advertising technology, measurement and personalisation into one coordinated ecosystem.

What Retailers Should Do Next

Retail media has already proven that it can generate substantial new revenue.

Its next challenge is proving that it can create better shopping experiences.

Dunnhumby's research suggests consumers are ready.

They are willing to share their data.

They welcome personalisation.

They appreciate relevant offers.

They expect consistency across every channel.

Most importantly, they reward retailers that use customer data to simplify shopping rather than complicate it.

For retailers, that represents the industry's next competitive advantage.

The future of retail media will not be defined by how many advertising channels a retailer operates.

It will be defined by how effectively those channels help shoppers discover products, make confident purchasing decisions and complete their purchases.

The retailers that create the greatest value for shoppers will ultimately create the greatest value for themselves.

The same question will be tested on stage later this year, when Groceryshop 2026 asks whether AI, GLP-1 and retail media can deliver real growth.