Arizona Tribune - Retailers vs. Reality: Report Finds Disconnect Between Retail Tech Investments and Shopper Demands

SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESS Newswire / September 10, 2025 / As retailers continue to invest significantly in immersive experiences and flashy technologies in stores, new research from Chatmeter finds that consumers would prefer they prioritize improving the basics, including dressing rooms, inventory and the checkout experience.

"These findings reinforce the importance of deep customer listening rather than chasing trends to drive more retail traffic," said John Mazur, CEO of Chatmeter, a multi-location customer intelligence platform. "Retail shoppers are openly sharing what they want from stores organically online, and AI intelligence tools provide retailers with the ability to analyze that feedback at scale to dramatically improve the in-store experience."

In its 2025 In-Store Specialty Retail Report, Chatmeter used its Pulse Ai platform to analyze over 500,000 online reviews of specialty retail stores, including multi-location apparel, beauty and jewelry retailers, and surveyed over 1,000 consumers who had shopped at such stores in the past year.

The research found that 87% of reviews were driven by in-store basics, highlighting consumer demands for retail stores to prioritize the fundamentals to improve the customer experience.

Key Findings

• Inventory is priority #1: Consumers ranked inventory as the single most important factor influencing their decision to visit a store, followed by exclusive in-store deals and the ability to see and try products before purchase. However, inventory was also ranked as the top area where retailers need to improve.

• Employees make or break experiences: Store employees were mentioned in 61% of online reviews, up 10% year-over-year (YoY), highlighting retail associates' significant and growing impact on the customer experience.

• Consumers want to try before they buy: 52% of surveyed consumers said they choose brick-and-mortar shopping over e-commerce because they want to experience and try products in person, with reviews mentioning product testing, try-ons and fitting rooms growing 32% YoY.

• Shoppers hunt for bargains in store: Deals and discounts motivated visits, with 8% of reviews mentioning deals and sales and shoppers ranking them as the second most important factor in visiting a store.

• Flashy tech goes ignored: Consumers remain disengaged from flashy tech, despite significant retailer investments in immersive and high-tech experiences. The number of reviews mentioning emerging technologies in stores, such as VR, AR and smart mirrors, was insignificant. Only 4% of survey respondents had used AR or VR in a store in the past year.

• Personalization matters: Personalization remains a major opportunity for retail tech investment, with 27% of shoppers saying they had sought personalized recommendations from store employees in the past year. Sentiment around personalization in customer reviews, however, declined YoY.

To download the full report, including breakdowns for beauty, apparel and jewelry categories, click here.

About Chatmeter

Chatmeter is a groundbreaking intelligence platform purpose-built to help multi-location businesses turn customer feedback into actionable insights and search rankings into real revenue. Using generative AI and other proprietary AI models, the Chatmeter platform analyzes millions of customer interactions across reviews, surveys, images and social media to help the world's largest businesses understand what customers really care about, what their real business risks are, how to compete and win in local markets and more.

Contact

Anna Rice
[email protected]

SOURCE: Chatmeter

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

O.Ortiz--AT