An opportunity to drive inflight sales by increasing engagement with cabin crew has been highlighted in research carried out by m1nd-set for the Nordic Travel Retail Group (NTRG).

It has been spotlighted as a key take-away from the report, which revealed that while around 70% of Nordic travellers tend to plan their purchases, inflight cabin crew ‘were not cited very often as a communications touch point’.

“While we see the huge impact of the sales staff in stores generally, this success is not echoed by the inflight cabin crew,” said Peter Mohn, CEO and Owner at m1nd-set.

“We believe there are significant missed opportunities for inflight sales, who currently do not seem to be engaging with customers sufficiently.

“Given that a significant majority of Nordic travellers, around 70%, tend to plan their purchases, we know that they are in the right state of mind to be approached by the inflight attendants and sales staff and the interaction would most probably be quite impactful.”

The research is the first instalment in a two-part quarterly report on airport and inflight shopping that is being delivered as part of a four-year strategic partnership between the association and the Swiss research agency to offer a comprehensive look at the Nordic consumer.

It focuses on purchase planning behaviour and interactions with touch points prior to purchasing both before arriving at the airport and the airport store, as well as touch points in the stores.

The insights showed that more than nine out of 10 shoppers say they noticed touch points about the duty free offer before arriving at the shop and two thirds say they were exposed to offline touch points while at home before leaving for the airport.

These include recommendations from friends and family, as well as billboards and magazines.

Other key statistics to emerge from the report include how around 40% of travellers say they saw communications about the duty free offer during the flight, via the inflight catalogue and magazine.

Furthermore, senior travellers and males are particularly prone to planning their purchases in airports, and those who plan their purchases tend to do so more for the watches and jewellery category.

However, it was noted that the behaviour differs across the various channels.

“We are delighted to announce the publication of this first report from m1nd-set,” said Haakon Dagestad, Chairperson of the Nordic Travel Retail Group, and HR & Communications Director at Travel Retail Norway.

“Our members are hungry for data and value the research highly.

“Shopping behaviour and the travel retail environment is quite different between airports, inflight, and ferries as the research also confirms.

“Given the importance of the ferry channel in our region, we need and appreciate the specific focus on each channel independently in these quarterly reports.”

“We believe the research will be a benefit both to our members and of course the association, as more companies will be keen to join to benefit from the data and service to our members.”

The published research was conducted among 1,1oo consumers at various airports across the region to gain insights into their airport and inflight shopping behaviour.

The second part of the quarterly report, conducted among 2,000 consumers in the ferry channel, will be released in October.

Consumers are interviewed about their shopping behaviour when travelling, across a range of themes and behaviour traits.

The research reports are made available to NTRG members on a complimentary basis as part of their membership benefits.