Marketers have little consensus about what personalization means or how to achieve it.

That’s the conclusion of Deloitte’s fourth study of how digital experiences are shaping customers’ expectations and shopping behavior.

The report found shoppers are increasingly willing to share personal data, such as location and personal details, because they understand that doing so can lead to an improved online experience. It also suggests retailers have been “painfully slow” to migrate from a campaign mindset, where everything is planned around sales events, to one that truly focuses on the customer.

I couldn’t agree more.

But wait. The report also warns:

Retailers should embrace the native capabilities of their digital touchpoints and integrate with platforms where their customers are already interacting at scale rather than trying to build such platforms themselves.

More specifically, Deloitte suggests it’s a “fallacy” to believe “any single retailer, which only interacts with a customer six to eight times a year (in a mostly transactional manner), can gather enough information to provide a meaningfully personalized experience.”

This is a head-scratcher, to put it mildly.

READ MORE AT THE FULL ARTICLE ON CMSWIRE TO SEE HOW RETAILERS ARE GETTING IT RIGHT AND FULFILLING THE POTENTIAL OF PERSONALIZATION.