The Evolving Landscape of Retail: Understanding Attention Over Visibility

If you are in retail, you know it's always evolving and changing. Right now, the idea of “getting noticed” has become a high-stakes game. It's often measured in metrics that don’t mean as much as we think they do. Clicks, impressions, foot traffic, open rates, and screen time are signals that many in retail have been taught to chase. But the truth is, visibility is no longer the same as value.

We are at a place where just because someone walked into your store doesn’t mean they were ever truly present. Just because they scrolled through your content doesn’t mean they felt anything. In a landscape that is noisier, faster, and more fragmented than ever before, it’s no longer enough to be seen. In today's world, you need to matter. To matter, we must understand attention not as a number, but as a state.

The Importance of Understanding Attention

A recent global study, which surveyed 7,000 consumers (including 3,000 from the U.S.), helped clarify this concept. It highlighted a crucial point that retail needs to absorb urgently: not all attention is created equal. Some forms of attention are passive, fragmented, and fleeting. Others are intentional, focused, and full of potential. The difference between the two shows up in spend, loyalty, and long-term brand value.

Focused on the Wrong War: Why Retail Is Chasing the Least Valuable Metric

Let’s start with a confronting truth: we’ve been measuring the wrong things. Most retailers still build strategies around how many people they can reach, how long they can keep them engaged, or how often they can get them to return. However, time on site, like time in a queue, isn’t inherently valuable. What matters is what happens within that time.

If we map this across different experiences—like concerts, books, video games, live sports, podcasts, and shopping centres—the pattern becomes clear. The most immersive, emotionally charged, and purpose-driven moments command higher value. For instance, a high-focus, live experience can generate up to A$50 per hour, while low-engagement activities like streaming music or listening to the radio hover closer to A$0.15–$0.20 per hour.

Now, let’s translate that to retail. A considered, emotionally resonant store visit, where a customer engages deeply with your brand story, product curation, and staff, is worth exponentially more than five hours of low-focus scrolling through your online catalogue.

Focus + Intent = Value

The real breakthrough here is understanding that attention is best measured through two core factors: how focused someone is, and why they’ve shown up in the first place.

When someone walks into your store or lands on your site, ask yourself:

• Are they focused, or are they just killing time?

• Are they here to enjoy something they love, solve a problem, connect, escape, or pass the time?

• Does the way you’ve structured your environment help them achieve that goal, or is it distracting from it?

  
  

When someone is highly focused, their likelihood to spend jumps significantly. According to the study, a 10% rise in average focus leads to an increase of around 17% in overall spend. Consumers in the top bracket of focus spend twice as much as those in the bottom.

This isn’t just interesting; it’s operationally critical. While attention can feel fuzzy to track, it's more observable than we think. You see signs of it every day: how long someone stays, what they touch, where they pause, and whether they look up or tune out. The key shift is recognizing that attention isn't just about time; it's about state. What was their intent? Were they immersed, or just passing through? When you start layering emotional purpose over customer behaviour, you stop chasing traffic and start understanding attention.

The Myth of the Super User

Retailers often celebrate their “super users”—those who visit most often or engage with the brand constantly. However, quantity of interaction does not equal quality of attention. Only a fraction of high-volume users are also high-value spenders. Some may have your store bookmarked or walk through your doors every week, but do so absentmindedly, without urgency and intent. They’re not your future; they’re your inertia.

In contrast, the real value lies with those that arrive focused, ready, and emotionally primed. These are your “super attention” customers. They might visit less, but when they do, they engage deeply. They are far more likely to purchase, remember, and return with purpose.

The Jobs We Need to Do in Retail

There are five core “reasons” people consume content, which I call emotional jobs. They are:

1. To enjoy something they love

2. To learn or gather information

3. To connect socially

4. To relax or unwind

5. To create background ambience

   
   

Retail plays in all five, but few brands are clear on which one they’re truly serving. If you’re a luxury brand, chances are your customers are most likely here for love; they adore your world, storytelling, and craft. A premium electronics store might fit into the education category. A fast fashion retailer may cater to light entertainment, while a grocer or chemist often serves as background function.

None of these are wrong. However, each demands a different rhythm, aesthetic, emotional register, and merchandising flow. Misalign the job to be done with the customer’s state of mind, and you’ll feel it instantly in bounce rates, hesitation, cart abandonment, or even worse, indifference and complete lack of interest.

Designing for Attention: What the Best Are Doing

Retailers who outperform in this attention economy are doing a few things differently. They will:

• Treat emotional states as seriously as foot traffic or sales targets

• Design stores around intention, not just layout

• Measure quality of interaction, not just time

• Build teams who can create resonance, not just provide service

  
  

They understand that the store is not just a distribution channel (it hasn't been for a long time); it’s a medium. Like any medium, it either earns attention or wastes it. That’s why some of the highest-performing retail environments are also the most human, tactile, and emotionally immersive. They engage the senses, respect time, and correctly reward curiosity.

Segmenting by Feeling, Not Just Demographics

One of the smartest shifts you can make in retail now is to move away from traditional segmentation (age, gender, income) toward psychographic and behavioural attention states.

Three high-value customer profiles that will stand out for you are:

• Lovers of content and experience: These are our omnivores. They binge on culture, story, and entertainment. We just need to give them worlds to dive into.

• Interactivity seekers: Highly engaged, opinionated, and social. These are the individuals who love games, feedback, and customisation. So, you need to involve them.

• Community creators: These are your extroverts, sharers, and enthusiasts. They’ll champion your brand if it gives them something worth spreading.

  
  

Each of these groups brings more than just money; they bring meaningful, resonant attention that scales emotionally, not just numerically.

Rethinking Retail KPIs

So, what do we do with all of this? This is something I've been helping retail teams shift from, moving from metrics that measure presence to metrics that measure presence of mind.

Some of the best questions a retail leader can now ask include:

• Are we winning high-quality attention, or just collecting bodies?

• Is our brand clear on which emotional job we’re fulfilling?

• Have we designed our experience to match that intention?

• Are we measuring the state our customers are in, not just where they are?

  
  

The future of retail will not be won by brands that chase attention. It will be won by brands that earn it, deserve it, and know exactly what to do with it when they have it.

The Wrap Up

If you are in retail, you're not in the visibility business anymore. You’re in the emotional investment business. In that business, the most valuable thing you can create isn’t content, inventory, or campaign reach. It’s a moment of deep, human attention, presence, and purpose, in the right state and for the right reason.

Let’s stop shouting so much and start resonating instead.