The question

Our understanding of “the shopper” had become broad: one legacy persona was being used across Canada and the US, and across the product portfolio. With ambitious growth targets, we needed a clearer view of both our existing customers and the wider market opportunity, including whether the same assumptions held across both countries.

Rather than limiting the research to existing users, I recommended a market-level study that could show us who we were reaching today, who we weren't, and where the greatest opportunities might lie.

Looking beyond our product

I wanted the segmentation to reflect people’s wider shopping lives, rather than simply how they used our product.

The research explored financial sentiment, planning and organisational behaviours, digital adoption, shopping routines and access to physical stores.

• Nationally representative surveys - 2,000 per market

• Cluster analysis to identify the patterns that meaningfully differentiated shoppers.

This gave us an opportunity to test assumptions already circulating within the business. One of the most useful findings challenged the idea that finances and income were the defining characteristic of our most engaged audience. Planning behaviour proved considerably more informative.

Getting behind the segments

The quantitative work told us who was different; the qualitative work helped explain why.

I followed the segmentation with 50 in-depth interviews across Canada and the US, recruited from priority segments across both markets. This allowed me to explore the motivations, routines and trade-offs behind the statistical patterns and develop the work into personas, Jobs to Be Done and end-to-end customer journeys.

Making it useful

I didn't want the segmentation to become a research report people looked at once and forgot.

I created different levels of detail for different product groups, from quick segment references to deeper personas and journeys, and worked with Product and Marketing to bring the findings into their existing ways of working.

Teams also worked directly with customer interviews to develop Jobs to Be Done, helping them build their own understanding of the research rather than simply receiving the finished framework.

What changed

A shared customer framework
Product and Marketing gained a common evidence base for discussing priority customers and their needs.

Research where teams already worked
Segments were incorporated into onboarding, Confluence and analytics dashboards rather than sitting separately in a research repository.

~$200K CAD saved
Running both segmentation programmes in-house avoided the cost of outsourcing the work.