Wednesday Apr 23, 2025
Consumer Insights: What Data Doesn't Reveal with Tessa Stuart, The Shopper Stalker

It seems we're awash with data these days. It's meant to improve decision-making and outcomes. While sales data tells us what has happened, it rarely tells us why it happened. It also tells us nothing about what didn't happen. Why did a customer walk away? What didn't they choose — and why?
Today's guest dives into that exact mystery almost every day. Tessa Stuart works in the food and drink retail space, helping brands to decode customer behaviour and perception, revealing the mindset behind the metrics. These consumer insights bring the numbers to life and transform how companies present themselves to customers when it matters most.
Known as 'The Shopper Stalker', Tessa shares her journey from advertising focus groups to becoming a leading voice of live customer insight via attempting to sell her children to Innocent drinks. Featured on Radio 4's The Today Programme, she's also the author of two books about getting stocked and then getting picked off the shelf.
What Tessa does is eminently transferrable outside of food and drink, listen to 'What Data Doesn't Tell Us' to find out:
- Tessa's approach and how she became the Shopper Stalker
- What she's learned about how consumers think and behave
- How real-time encounters can help brands connect with customers
- What her observations of buyer behaviour reveal about how brands should present themselves
- How augmenting sales data can help us connect with actual customer needs
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Connect with Tessa on LinkedIn.
Sign up for her insight-packed newsletters.
Buy her books on Amazon: Packed and Flying Off The Shelves.
--Thanks for listening to Curious Business, the business podcast that brings you fresh insights, experiences and anecdotes to help you think differently about your business and marketing.
My name is Stephen Morris. I help businesses put the problems their customers and prospects face at the heart of their marketing so it matters and creates opportunities. If you'd like to know more, book a discovery call.
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