After years of pandemic-accelerated digital transformation, fashion and beauty consumers are more digitally connected than ever before — yet meaningful engagement with these consumers feels increasingly elusive.
Customers increasingly expect seamless integration between digital and physical touchpoints — where online behaviour informs their in-store experience, and vice versa. However, these functions and data learnings remain siloed in many businesses, limiting the shared knowledge and opportunities to optimise the omnichannel retail experience.
This digital imperative has also left many retailers uneasy: 47 percent say they are extremely or very concerned that their messaging isn’t resonating with customers, according to Braze’s 2025 Retail Customer Engagement Review.
The latest knowledge report from BoF, “Rethinking Fashion and Beauty’s Digital Customer Experience” — in partnership with customer engagement platform Braze — examines how retailers can use advanced personalisation, omnichannel synergies and adaptable technology systems to create sustainable customer engagement.
Industry executives from brands and retailers including 111Skin, Tala and LuisaViaRoma, and independent experts from Wharton Business School and RADAR, shared their insights alongside Braze’s head of retail and e-commerce industry marketing, Meredith Mitchell.
Now, BoF shares key insights from chapter two, ‘Unpacking Customer Engagement Pain Points’, to examine some of the core challenges facing fashion and beauty retailers today.
The Digital-Physical Divide
- While consumers increasingly discover products through social media and AI-powered tools, physical stores remain essential. The seamless integration between digital and physical touchpoints defines modern retail, says Meredith Mitchell, head of retail and e-commerce industry marketing at Braze.
- However, most brands struggle to deliver the seamless integration consumers expect, operating through fragmented systems with customer data scattered across touchpoints.
- Customers who engage in omnichannel shopping tend to spend more than single-channel shoppers, yet retailers consistently fail to connect the dots.
- An IBM 2024 global consumer study revealed only 9 percent of consumers are content with their in-store experience, while just 14 percent are satisfied with online shopping. When brands fail to bridge this divide, they miss critical opportunities to drive conversion, build loyalty, and increase customer lifetime value.
Brand-Loyalty Erosion
- Today’s consumers continuously assess whether each brand interaction aligns with their values and meets their expectations — and the pressure is intensifying.
- The State of Fashion 2025 reports 64 percent of US shoppers traded down to cheaper alternatives in 2024, while consumers increasingly expect brands to reflect their identities and values.
- “It’s really about experiences and connection, both digitally and physically,” says Michael Edelmann, chief marketing officer at luxury beauty brand 111Skin. “I think brands really need to excel in both of those areas because nowadays, it only takes one wrong move and the loyalty is completely broken.”
- The speed of loyalty collapse is startling, with historic luxury brands experiencing growing vulnerability in the 2025 luxury downturn — heritage provides no immunity.
The Personalisation Paradox
- Despite sitting on vast customer data, most retailers remain trapped in rudimentary demographic segmentation.
- According to Professor Peter Fader, marketing professor at The Wharton School, most fashion retailers still provide static “one-size-fits-all” online experiences despite having “the data now to start getting more granular.”
- Braze’s Retail Customer Engagement Review reveals that 46 percent of retailers worry about whether customers have agreed to data-based personalisation, while 29 percent cite legal risk concerns.
- This disconnect between consumer expectations and brand capabilities creates frustration on both sides — customers receive generic communications while marketers wonder why engagement metrics decline.
Fragmented Customer Attention Amid Channel Explosion
- The proliferation of digital platforms has fundamentally transformed where customers interact with brands. TikTok and Instagram have overtaken Google for Gen-Z discovery, according to SOCI, while Reddit’s global daily active users grew 51 percent in Q2 2024.
- TikTok Shop became the ninth-largest beauty and wellness e-commerce platform in the US within a year of launch, demonstrating how quickly commerce patterns can shift.
- AI-driven discovery further complicates matters, with Large Language Models allowing consumers to research products without ever visiting brand sites.
- As Professor Fader explains: “The proliferation of engagement channels has not necessarily reduced overall consumer engagement, but rather dispersed it across multiple platforms, making comprehensive tracking significantly more challenging.”
The Path Forward
The confluence of these challenges — the digital-physical divide, evolving loyalty dynamics, personalisation gaps, and fragmented attention — creates a formidable obstacle course. Yet within these challenges lie opportunities for differentiation.
Brands that can successfully navigate this complexity — integrating channels seamlessly while building values-driven loyalty and delivering true personalisation — will emerge with significant competitive advantage.
Download the full knowledge report to read the strategies businesses should implement to overcome barriers to personalisation, and explores what it takes for fashion and beauty retailers to reimagine customer engagement strategies — balancing technological innovation with human connection.
This is a sponsored feature paid for by Braze as part of a BoF partnership.
