Most retail conversation is about the people who buy. But Shane Lenton, Co-Founder and CEO of The Wishlist Company, and Douglas Low, CEO of Incu, are interested in the other 80%.
Every week, thousands of customers walk into Incu’s 14 stores across Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast. They browse, they try things on, they show intent. Then they leave without buying. For most retailers, nothing about that visit is captured. Incu decided that wasn’t good enough.
In ecommerce, a customer who views a product triggers cart abandonment emails, retargeting ads, and browse flows across three or four platforms. In-store, that same level of intent produces nothing a retailer can act on. Shane calls it the “black hole.” The customer showed up, spent time, demonstrated purchase intent, and walked out without the retailer knowing any of it.
In this episode, Shane and Doug cover three things every retailer with physical stores needs to hear:
- Why in-store customer intent is retail’s biggest untapped revenue opportunity
- How Incu built a culture of curiosity that makes clienteling feel natural, not salesy
- Why attribution is the difference between a tool your team uses and one they quietly abandon
Episode Chapters
| 0:34 | The In-Store Intent Black Hole |
| 3:40 | Why Wishlist Exists And Works |
| 7:45 | Incu’s Culture Of Curiosity |
| 11:50 | Scaling Great Service Across Stores |
| 14:55 | Making Integrations Simple For Retailers |
| 19:12 | Clienteling In Practice On The Floor |
| 25:10 | Attribution That Changes Staff Behavior |
| 31:05 | Measuring Engagement Not Just Sales |
| 35:25 | ROI Benchmarks And Rollout Strategy |
| 38:50 | What’s Next With AI Automation |
| 44:13 | Key Takeaways And Where To Learn More |
What Is the In-Store Intent Black Hole?
The in-store intent black hole is the gap between customers who visit a physical store and those who actually purchase. For most retailers, 80% of visitors leave without buying. Unlike online where that behaviour triggers automated recovery sequences, in-store intent disappears with the customer. There is no abandoned cart. No browse signal. No retargeting pixel. Just a door swinging closed.
Shane built The Wishlist Company specifically to close that gap. The idea came from a decade running IT and ecommerce at Cue Clothing, where he watched retailers spend tens of thousands on paid channels to recover online intent while doing nothing with the far stronger in-store intent sitting right in front of them.
Why 80% of Store Visitors Leave Without Buying
The maths are straightforward. If a store converts 20 out of 100 visitors and finds a way to convert two more, that is 10% revenue growth. Not from more foot traffic. From the people already walking through the door.
“For most retailers, only 20% of those customers are actually making a purchase during that visit. And unlike the online environment, it’s a dead end. It’s a black hole for the retailer.”
– Shane Lenton, Co-Founder and CEO, The Wishlist Company
The Wishlist Company creates a value exchange between the visitor and the retailer. A customer who tries something on but is not ready to buy can have the item added to a wishlist by a staff member. The customer receives a follow-up email. The retailer knows the item, the customer, and the intent. If the customer then buys online or at another store within the attribution window, the original staff member gets the credit. The black hole becomes a pipeline.
Shane also pointed to a benchmark worth noting: The Iconic now attributes 25% of its revenue to wishlists online. The same intent capture logic applied in-store is still largely untapped across Australian retail.
Incu’s Culture of Curiosity
Clienteling tools only work if the team uses them. And teams only use them consistently when the culture makes it feel natural. That is where Incu stands apart from almost every other retailer Shane has worked with — and it is one of the most compelling customer experience stories we have had on the show.
Doug described how Incu trains staff to see customers not as transactions but as characters and personalities worth understanding. Curiosity is a formal brand value at Incu. It means staff remember who came in last week, what they were looking for, and what is going on in their life. That level of relationship does not come from a platform. It comes from how the business is run from the top down.
“They don’t necessarily look at customers like people that they can transact with. They look at them as kind of characters and personalities that they can be friends with and learn more about. And they’re all curious.”
– Doug Low, CEO, Incu
But Incu hit the same problem every growing retailer faces. What lives in one person’s head does not travel with them to another store. A Sydney team member might know a regular perfectly. The Melbourne team would see them as a stranger. Adding Wishlist meant that institutional knowledge became shareable. The curiosity already embedded in the culture finally had a system to back it up, and consistent service could follow the customer across all 14 stores.
Attribution That Changes Staff Behavior
The most common reason clienteling initiatives fail is not the technology. It is the question every team member asks before they bother: what is in it for me?
If a staff member helps a customer in one store and that customer buys online or at a different location, the original team member gets nothing. So they stop helping. Shane described attribution as one of the first problems he set out to solve. When the sale tracks back to the individual who did the work, regardless of where the transaction happens, the behavior changes.
When a team member adds an item to a customer’s wishlist and that customer purchases within a configured window, the sale is attributed back to that person. Payment links sent via SMS or MMS work the same way. The team member who built the relationship gets visibility over the outcome. That single change shifts the platform from a burden the manager wants to a tool the team actually wants to use. It is also what separates the best retail technology platforms from the ones that get quietly switched off after 90 days.
At Incu, the results are measurable. Doug pointed to the Gallery women’s store, which leaned hardest into the platform. Its proportion of VIP customers (those spending over $2,000 in a calendar year) climbed to between 30 and 40%. Their sales targets went with it.
“The people who are using Wishlist the most usually have the highest portion of VIPs. It’s less about the sale, but they understand that it’s a connection with that customer.”
– Doug Low, CEO, Incu
Shane also introduced a first-in-market metric called the customer engagement score. It tracks not just who purchased, but how many non-buyers the team actively engaged with. A retailer can now report: 100 people came in today, 20 bought, and the team engaged with 35 of the 80 who did not. That number is now a KPI. That is a fundamentally different way to measure a store.
The Takeaway
The 80% who walk out without buying are not lost. They are a pipeline. The question is whether your team has the tools, the culture, and the attribution to act on them.
Incu and The Wishlist Company show it can be done without a large IT department, a six-month implementation, or a change management program that takes the team off the floor. The hard part is not the technology. It is deciding the 80% are worth going after.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the in-store intent black hole in retail?
The in-store intent black hole is the gap between customers who visit a physical store and those who actually purchase. For most retailers, 80% of visitors leave without buying. Unlike online, where that behaviour triggers retargeting and abandoned browse flows, in-store intent disappears with the customer. The term was used by Shane Lenton of The Wishlist Company to describe what is widely retail’s biggest untapped revenue opportunity.
What is clienteling in retail and how does it work in-store?
Clienteling is the practice of building ongoing, personalised relationships between retail staff and customers. In-store, it typically involves capturing customer preferences, purchase history, and wishlist items so staff can provide tailored service during and after a visit. Platforms like The Wishlist Company enable in-store teams to log customer intent, send personalised follow-ups, and track attribution across channels and store locations. Browse more on this topic in our Customer Experience episodes.
How does Incu use customer data to improve in-store service?
Incu uses The Wishlist Company‘s clienteling suite alongside Shopify and AP21 to give store staff a shared view of each customer across all 14 locations. Staff can see previous purchases, wishlisted items, and online browsing behaviour. A customer who has only shopped in Sydney gets the same personalised experience in Melbourne. The Gallery women’s store, Incu’s most active user of the platform, has grown its VIP customer ratio to between 30 and 40%.
What ROI can retailers expect from a wishlist or clienteling platform?
Shane Lenton of The Wishlist Company reports ROIs of 300 times from online wishlist features, with a baseline average above 150 times. In-store clienteling returns similar numbers when implemented with proper attribution and team engagement. The maths are simple: converting two more customers out of every 100 in-store visitors adds 10% to total revenue without needing additional foot traffic. Explore more tools and platforms in our Technology & Platforms episodes.
Based on Episode 618 of the Add To Cart podcast with Shane Lenton, Co-Founder and CEO of The Wishlist Company, and Douglas Low, CEO of Incu. Join the Add To Cart community for free.
