Coffee and Commerce with Cascone: Redefining the Shopper-First Strategy with Foot Locker

Being shopper-first is a goal that all retailers want to achieve, but actually getting there takes a lot of work — from team operations to defining what being ‘shopper-first’ really means.

Watch Sarah Cascone and Kaleena Zagrzebski, Director of Customer Retention and CRM as they discuss how her team at Foot Locker took action to make a strategic organizational shift from a focus on channel and product to a focus on the shopper.

Sarah Cascone: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Coffee and Commerce. I’m excited to introduce Kaleena Zagrzebski, Director of Customer Retention and CRM at Foot Locker who’s joining me today. 

So, the team at Foot Locker has been making a cultural shift from a focus on channel and product to a focus on the shopper — and Kaleena’s here today to share some insights on why it’s so important and how they’re doing it. So Kaleena, thanks for joining me. 

Kaleena Zagrzebski: Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here. 

Sarah Cascone: Awesome. So tell me about this. Why is your team making this cultural shift? 

Kaleena Zagrzebski: So we know that success is not just about the products that perform well or the success of all of these different channels that we as retailers have. It’s about the shopper, about each customer that we have. The industry is changing quickly and long term success is about giving each shopper an experience that’s unique to them. It’s something that I think a lot of us have known is important for a while. And now, it’s about finding the best way to take action on it.

Kaleena Zagrzebski: For the CRM channels, up until about two years ago, the email and SMS and push areas were completely separate teams. They were very siloed and now all three of those channels are in one area. As well as very close to the other paid media channels as well. So we know all of these channels play a super important role in the customer journey, and it’s just figuring out that right mix for each customer.

Sarah Cascone: That’s huge. Now, when it came to really putting pen to paper on this shift, how did you get started and who was part of that decision? 

Kaleena Zagrzebski: So we wanted to align on what it means to be shopper centric. That meant unifying our teams together, which we did. But in the meantime, we also put a deck together with the data. So we put together the who, what, what type of customers have the highest lifetime value. If anyone’s not familiar, Foot Locker has multiple different brands. So we wanted to take a look at who our most valuable customers are and what their shopping patterns are.

Are they loyalty members? Are they shopping on the app? Those types of things. So we wanted to understand all of these patterns that gave us the highest lifetime value to be able to say, you know, here’s where we’re at today, is this the right mix? Is this the right thing we want to see and where do we want to improve?

We got buy-in from the leaders of the different banners that Foot Locker has — and now we’re putting that plan into action. 

Sarah Cascone: I’m hearing that more and more. It’s no longer about growth and acquisition at all costs. It’s about doing it profitably and then retaining your best and most valuable customers.

So tell me more about how your team is doubling down on delivering on that promise. 

Kaleena Zagrzebski: We’re continuing to use the predictive modeling that we’ve been using for a couple of years now. Activating all of the shopper and behavioral data that we have and using those product recommendations. We’re setting up all of these new measures to report on lifetime value and be a little less about the channel itself and more about how the channel impacts those customer metrics.

We want to boost each shopper’s value over time and understand the strategies that we can implement that help us get there. We’re also looking at repeat purchases, time to the second purchase, and demonstrating how we’re retaining shoppers consistently and getting them to buy again.

Sarah Cascone: And again, and again. I mean, those channel metrics are important leading indicators, but the sharper metrics and what they’re doing is really what’s gonna drive to that bottom line. So what’s next for the Foot Locker team?

Kaleena Zagrzebski: We’ve been saying this forever is just testing, testing, testing. We’re always, always trying to test something, but really just starting to put that plan into action.

We’re getting the tools in place and getting the team in place and putting all of these things together and finally putting it into action. It feels like we’ve been working on it for a really long time, but obviously these things take time. We’re also eyeing more cross-channel strategies and seeing how we can bring in channels beyond email and SMS and push and those types of channels.

So trying to bring those in and trying to meet each shopper’s preferences and expectations and testing everything along the way. Sarah Cascone:  I’m sure every retail marketer can empathize. The more I can test and faster, the better. Kaleena, thank you so much for joining me today and thanks everyone for joining Coffee and Commerce.

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