Blurring Boundaries Between Retail and Hospitality: Embracing the Role of Data
As someone who has spent over 20 years working across both the retail and hospitality sectors, seeing things from all sides of the retailer, supplier, and agency divide, I’m fascinated by how often these worlds are perceived as separate and distinct. It can feel like they’re parallel universes, destined never to meet. Of course, there are some valid differences, but I’ve long believed there’s far more similarity than many realise, and each sector has plenty to learn from the other. This was echoed recently by Andrew Garton, chief executive of Individual Restaurants, who, reflecting on his own personal journey from retail to hospitality, recognised that there’s a lot of learnings from retail for hospitality “in terms of detail, financial controls, and what really makes a difference.”
When I moved into the hospitality sector eight years ago, I was struck by the stark difference in data availability. Retail has data in abundance—highly accurate EPOS reads, Named Account data for detailed performance insights, and consumer panels and loyalty data that offer an in-depth view of shopper behaviour. Paradoxically, retail’s abundance of data can sometimes lead to “analysis paralysis,” especially without the skills to interpret what really matters. Hospitality, by contrast, has typically relied on high-level market reads. Operators can assess their performance in broad terms against a general cohort, while suppliers often have only limited performance insights, pieced together from published company reports or trading statements.
These differences are understandable, given retail operates within a more structured, product-focused framework where barcodes make tracking far simpler. Hospitality, by nature, is a people business, and factors like gut feel, intuition, and creativity play a more prominent role. But it’s time to consider data as an essential complement to these strengths. Retail’s data-led decision-making culture could support hospitality leaders looking to make more informed choices in an increasingly competitive and cost-sensitive market.
In retail, data provides a reliable performance measure, allowing businesses to benchmark against competitors and track behavioural changes over time. In hospitality, this capability has been far less accessible, leaving operators for example to assess underperforming sites without clarity on localised market trends. At Hospitality Data Insights (HDI), we’ve pioneered card spending data in the UK hospitality sector, capturing the day-by-day, site-by-site spending of over 10 million people across more than 140,000 venues. This brings retail-level data depth into hospitality, helping operators and suppliers understand market dynamics from individual sites to broader market performance.
In both sectors, everyone is ultimately competing for the same customers, yet traditional divisions between “retail” and “hospitality” often miss this point. A customer might just as easily grab a supermarket meal deal as dine in a coffee shop, fast casual restaurant, or pub. Brands are increasingly recognising this overlap, with KFC launching meal deals to compete directly with supermarkets, and M&S coffee shops providing competition for well-established coffee chains through formats which focus on shared shopper missions. Retailers are actively blurring these lines, bringing operational standards honed in retail into the hospitality space…. IKEA’s recent opening of their first standalone restaurant is a notable recent example of this.
Another key area of overlap is in decision-making around range, pricing, and promotions. A client recently captured this well, saying that “a menu full of items people don’t want to eat is like a shelf full of items no one wants to buy.” As in retail, hospitality operators need to ensure that they have the right offer for each of their venues, supported by appropriate pricing and promotions. With the recent budget announcements, the importance of getting these decisions right is arguably more important than ever, and it’s an area where data and insight can help.
For suppliers, card spending data allows for a more customer-led approach to identifying the best distribution opportunities for their brands, whilst making it easier to pinpoint the best sites for brand activation and sales efforts. HDI’s insights help remove the subjectivity and make these decisions based on actual customer behaviour, which is particularly valuable in today’s challenging market.
At HDI, we’re on a mission to bring a retail level of data and insight into the hospitality sector, helping businesses make decisions with the same clarity and confidence available to the retail world. Embracing a data-led approach is about more than just adopting new tools—it’s about unlocking the full potential of creativity, intuition, and understanding to build a deeper connection with customers. By leveraging data, hospitality operators and suppliers can identify the best locations, optimise pricing, fine-tune their ranges, and ultimately, create experiences that deliver “value for experience.” There’s no better time than now for the industry to harness this potential and take a major step forward.
Mark Bentley is the business development director of Hospitality Data Insights (HDI), the leading provider of card spending insight, pricing and review data to the UK hospitality sector. He is also a qualified beer sommelier.
