Shoppers aren’t playing by the old rules, so why are brands still planning like they are?
Consumers no longer shop in a straight line. They might discover a product on their phone in the morning, test it in-store during lunch, and complete the purchase online that evening. It’s not about “digital” versus “physical”; it’s about what’s most convenient in the moment.
Locala x EMARKETER 2025 Report
To explore how shoppers are navigating this new landscape, Locala partnered with EMARKETER to survey 2,850 U.S. consumers. The results reveal a powerful shift: people are actively blending their experiences across channels, while many marketers are still planning as if those environments operate separately.
70%+ of shoppers move fluidly between online and in-store touchpoints
77% use mobile in-store to check prices or reviews
60%+ pay more attention to ads that reference their city
This is what defines channel-less commerce, a consumer-driven, context-first shopping journey that rewards relevance and penalizes fragmentation. Brands that treat each touchpoint in isolation are falling behind, while those that deliver seamless, locally relevant experiences are rising above the noise.
So, how do you plan for a world like this? Explore the full report here.
Winning in a Channel-less Commerce World
If consumers are already shopping this way, the question isn’t if your brand should adapt; it’s how fast you can.
To succeed, your strategy needs to reflect how people move through the buying process: researching on one screen, visiting stores for immediacy, and responding to ads that feel personal and relevant.
That means moving beyond disconnected campaigns and toward a planning model that includes:
✅ Unified insights across digital and physical journeys
✅ Localized targeting that meets shoppers in the right place, at the right time
✅ Loyalty data activation to personalize messaging and offers
✅ Consistent brand storytelling across every touchpoint
Measurement also needs to evolve. Traditional attribution models weren’t built for journeys that start with a mobile search, jump to an in-store comparison, and end in an app purchase days later. Without visibility across that full path, performance gets lost in the shuffle.
The brands that win are the ones that:
- Show up early
- Stay relevant through local, personalized ads
- Capture moments of intent, especially in-store
- Use loyalty and behavioral data to keep the experience connected
This isn’t just about better creative or bigger budgets. It’s about aligning strategy with how people shop and using the right solutions to make that possible.
How Omni Planner Brings Clarity to a Fragmented Landscape
Locala’s Omni Planner was built for this exact moment, where traditional solutions fall short and marketers need better ways to turn insight into impact.
By combining digital signals with real-world behavior, Omni Planner gives marketers a unified view of performance across every environment. It eliminates the guesswork of fragmented planning and delivers campaigns that actually match how people shop, whether online, in-store, or in between.
With Omni Planner, advertisers can:
- See how awareness, engagement, and visitation stack up in each market
- Generate localized, insight-led strategies without building plans manually
- Benchmark against competitors across digital and physical touchpoints
- Adapt campaigns to regional behaviors in just a few clicks
Brands using this engagement-based approach have reported:
Download the full report & book a demo to discover how consumer behavior is reshaping the path to purchase, and see how Omni Planner can help you turn channel-less commerce complexity into clarity.
