When it comes to understanding your customers and the trends shaping your market, it’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on a single touch point. For instance, many businesses put all their research efforts into eCommerce data, believing it will provide the full picture of consumer behaviour. But here’s the catch: focusing only on online buying behaviour can cause you to miss out on key insights—like the buyer decision-making cycle, purchase stages, and offline interactions—that are crucial for building an accurate, full-funnel customer journey.

Why Focusing on One Touchpoint Can Be Limiting

Think about the modern buying process. While it’s true that many consumers buy online, that’s not the whole story. The customer journey today is multifaceted—and it involves a mix of online and offline interactions at various stages.Take the example of a clothing purchase: A customer might start by visiting a bricks-and-mortar store to check the fit, feel the material, or try on a product. They might love the item but not be ready to buy it on the spot—perhaps because they are waiting for a better deal, checking their budget, or simply deciding if it’s the right choice.

Later, the same customer might turn to eCommerce to compare prices, look for deals, or check customer reviews. They might end up purchasing online after they’ve made the decision, but their initial offline experience was a vital part of the process.

f you’re only tracking the online shopping behaviour in your market research, you’re missing out on a crucial part of the buying decision process. The same goes for many other industries: customers are frequently moving between touchpoints, and their decisions are influenced by a range of factors from both physical and digital environments.

The Full Picture: Understanding the Entire Customer Journey

‍In order to build a complete, accurate picture of your customers, you need to look at every stage of their journey—not just one touch point. From initial awareness to final purchase, customers interact with brands in multiple ways and across multiple channels.

Understanding how your customers move between these stages is key to uncovering valuable insights. For instance:

Research and Discovery: Your customers might begin their journey by browsing online reviews, interacting with social media content, or visiting your website.

Consideration Stage: They might then move to a physical store to check the product, try it out, or see it in person.Decision and

Purchase: Finally, they might go online to buy the product because it’s more convenient, they’ve found a better deal, or they simply prefer shopping from home.

By focusing only on one of these stages, you miss out on understanding the full decision-making process. This fragmented view of the customer journey can lead to incomplete insights that don’t accurately reflect how your customers actually behave or make decisions.

Why You Need Multi-Touchpoint Research

Multi-touchpoint research looks beyond one mode of interaction and gives you a holistic view of your customer’s experience. It allows you to capture insights from multiple channels (both online and offline), providing a deeper understanding of:

How customers move from one stage to another

What factors influence their decisions at each stage

What role each touchpoint plays in the overall purchasing process

How to optimise each touchpoint for maximum engagement and conversion

In essence, you’re mapping out the customer’s journey stage by stage, from initial awareness right through to post-purchase. This enables you to create a more effective, targeted strategy for engaging customers at the right time and place, whether online or offline.

Conclusion: Go Beyond One-Sided Data

The world of customer behaviour is complex, and if you focus solely on one touchpoint (like eCommerce), you’re missing a significant portion of the story. The modern customer journey is multidimensional—it spans across both offline and online interactions and involves multiple decision-making stages.

To truly understand your customers and market trends, you need to embrace the full picture. By gathering insights across all touchpoints, you’ll be better equipped to segment your audience, identify opportunities, and optimise your strategy for long-term success. After all, it’s not just about one-sided data—it’s about the entire journey.