The most personal retailer is…

A specialty beauty giant tops a new ranking of retailers with the most personalized customer experience. 

Sephora once again takes the top spot in the third annual “2019 Retail Personalization Index” from marketing automation platform Sailthru, earning a high score of 79 out of a possible 100 points. Rounding out the top five were Nordstrom (#2), Rent the Runway (#3), The Home Depot (#4), and Best Buy/DSW (tied at #5). 

The index evaluates 78 attributes of the customer experience across channels including email, website, mobile and offline, to score and rank the top 100 retail brands in personalized customer experience.

Sephora, which also received top honors in the 2018 and 2017 editions of the index, earned its number one ranking for providing a strong omnichannel experience. This includes in-store technology such as Color IQ, which scans customers’ skin to help determine the right foundations, concealers and lipsticks; as well as unified customer profiles across all channels and triggered emails and push notifications.

Nordstrom, which closely followed Sephora with a total score of 77, improved six spots from its #8 ranking in 2018. The luxury retailer was recognized for balancing traditional and modern customer experience with offerings such as curbside pickup, at-home stylists, and a personalized digital recommendation engine. Rent the Runway scored 73 and received high marks for its user-provided social images, while The Home Depot scored 68 and was praised for providing seamless product recommendations across every channel. 

Tying for fifth place with identical scores of 67, Best Buy was noted for its generous My Best Buy rewards program and DSW, which jumped from #14 in 2018, got credit for its extensive onboarding quiz.

To see the full index, click here.