Australian retailers are experiencing a period of increased economic uncertainty. Global trade tensions have created a new wave of economic pressure as many countries face impending tariffs on US exports while feeling the effects of a US-China trade standoff.
Costs across categories from apparel to electronics are expected to be unpredictable, with potential supply chain disruption and price fluctuations complicating spending for consumers.
In an environment where brands must do more with less, the most resilient are turning to a resource they already own and can control: first-party customer data.
Tariffs May Create Market Tensions for Retailers
The retail landscape is always competitive, but tariffs have added fresh cause for protecting profitability and deepening customer loyalty.
As has been well publicised, the US Government has imposed a sweeping range of tariffs on imports across many countries and product categories.
While Australia is directly affected with a 10 percent baseline tariff on most goods originating here, with some exemptions including certain steel and aluminum, Aussie retailers are more likely to be impacted by the ripple effects of the US imposing a 145% tariff on Chinese goods.
Predictions vary, however some economists predict that as China searches for new markets to offload its goods, markets like Australia could see lower prices on categories like electronics, cars and fashion items.
This has the potential to increase competitive pressures on local retailers, which may face major price differences in locally produced vs imported goods or challenges in terms of differentiating themselves amidst price consolidation.
These potential impacts do raise the stakes for customer interactions, but they provide opportunities for brands that can leverage and execute on their first-party data.
First-Party Data: An Advantage Brands Can Control
While no brand can control global trade policy, they can control how they use their data.
First-party customer data—behavioral signals, purchase history, engagement patterns—is key to unlocking new efficiencies, strengthening loyalty, and driving growth.
Here’s how leading brands are putting their customer data to work:
- Look to Loyal Customers
Acquiring new customers is costly, especially when margins are under pressure. Retaining and expanding relationships with existing customers offers the fastest path to profitable growth.
First-party data empowers brands to:
Identify high-value customers based on behaviors and lifetime potential.
Personalise experiences with targeted promotions, loyalty rewards, and exclusive offers.
Extend Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through better engagement strategies.
- Streamline Marketing
Every marketing dollar must now deliver measurable results. Broad, inefficient targeting strategies are no longer sustainable.
First-party data empowers brands to:
Build highly specific, behavior-based audience segments.
Optimise acquisition and engagement campaigns for better ROI.
Suppress low-probability or low-value targets to minimise wasted spend.
- Review Forecasting and Inventory Strategies
Geopolitical turbulence and week-to-week market shifts make it hard for traditional forecasting models to keep up. Customer-driven insights offer a smarter foundation for inventory and supply planning.
First-party data enables brands to:
Analyse purchasing patterns, affinities, and lifecycle behaviors.
Forecast demand signals with greater accuracy.
Align inventory, promotions, and production with true market needs.
- Optimise Operations
A modern approach to customer data management creates significant operational efficiencies:
Marketing teams are able to design and execute campaigns much more rapidly.
Customer Care teams, armed with improved customer context, are able to reduce call handle time and resolve issues on the first customer inquiry.
Data Management teams avoid complex and time-consuming activities integrating customer information across various brands, segments, and channels.
Amperity brings customer information together across every source of data, allowing for more streamlined and rapid execution of customer strategies.
- Control Your Customer Data Future
With third-party cookies in rapid decline and privacy regulations tightening, first-party data strategies are becoming mission-critical for resilience and growth.
First-party data strategies allow brands to:
Own rich, reliable customer profiles built from direct interactions.
Comply with global privacy regulations without sacrificing marketing effectiveness.
Future-proof customer engagement strategies against data ecosystem volatility.
Amperity specializes in maximizing first-party data value, giving brands full control over customer intelligence.
- Develop Dynamic Customer Strategies
Markets shift fast, and your customer strategy needs to shift even faster. Real-time insights are the difference between reacting late and leading change.
First-party data empowers brands to:
Pivot campaigns, offers, and messaging based on live trends.
Respond quickly to trade-down behavior, price sensitivity, or shifting loyalty signals.
Launch promotions and experiences in days instead of weeks.
Resilience Starts With Your Customer Data
Tariffs are creating uncertainties on pricing and putting pressure on retailers to strategise. .
Brands that deeply understand their customers—and act on that understanding—can meet the challenges of ongoing trade instability.
With a strong first-party data foundation, it’s possible to retain customers, optimise spend, and drive profitable growth even in uncertain times.
This is where a sophisticated customer data platform, like Amperity, can make a real difference. Our Customer Data Cloud empowers retail brands to unify, understand, and activate their customer data at scale—fuelling resilience and profitable growth.
We help brands unify fragmented customer data across messy, siloed datasets, unlock real-time insights into customer behaviour and preferences, power omnichannel personalisation with confidence, accelerate decision-making through reduced data latency, streamline operations through improved customer understanding, and integrate customer intelligence across marketing and supply chain planning for enterprise-wide impact.
Amperity turns customer data into a true competitive advantage, helping brands take faster action, personalise at scale and maximise every customer interaction.
Billy Loizou is area vice president for APAC at Amperity.