What Grocers Need to Know About Building An Affordable Customer Centric Platform

Nothing is more valuable to retailers than their customers.  Products don’t sell themselves.  Promotions don’t walk through the door of the store.  Growing retailers know their customers; struggling retailers don’t.  Everyone knows that understanding and utilizing customer data is the lynchpin to customer insights and knowledge.  However, many retailers, especially regional and local retailers, haven’t considered engaging a world class customer insights platform because it is beyond their budget.

Yes, the cost for a customer insights platform can easily run in the six-figure range.  But what if that cost could be offset by the store’s most valuable asset—customer data? The good news is, that data is valuable to CPG partners—so much so that in engagements where a retailer fully commercializes their customer data to CPGs, their platform is essentially cost neutral.

How is this possible?

CPGs are always looking for ways to generate demand for their products and their categories.  This includes not only specific prices and promotions but also multi-brand events, new product introductions, location suggestions, and future product ideas.  Strategic growth in any retailer increases their top and bottom line. 

“Speed to action” and “failing quickly” have also become more important.  Many smaller retailers can execute initiatives on shorter timelines.  Being able to read sales impact as well as customer dynamics almost immediately allows for course correction faster than ever before. 

CPGs have more resources and manpower than most retailers.  Informed CPGs can provide valuable recommendations that may help retailers grow their businesses.  Using the store’s own data provides a common language that retailers can use for their conversations with partners.  This can lead to “trusted advisor” status, category captaincy and even joint business planning. 

What’s holding retailers back?

Once retailers realize this win-win situation could pay for itself, why wouldn’t they explore the opportunity further?  The first step is to understand the store’s current condition: 

Aimia Intelligent Shopper Solutions has been working with retailers around the world for over 15 years, specializing in commercializing retailer customer data to CPGs.  The Aimia Insights Platform is not only world class but also accessible to a variety of budgets via flexibility and modularity.  

Both retailers and their CPG partners can receive the same valuable insights, use the same language and build a better more valuable relationship.

“AIP helps retailers create relevant, engaging, and inspiring shopping experiences and personalized interactions,” says Tim Collins, managing director of Aimia Intelligent Shopper Solutions.

For a retailer, having deep insights into customers’ behavior is priceless. Gaining those insights, however, is not. Medium- and small-sized retailers have a commodity that is valued by CPGs—their data. Making use of that commodity can help those retailers get an insight program, such as AIP, which helps them understand their customer and boost sales. It’s a great way to learn more about customers, and third-party buy-in helps to offset the cost of doing so. What’s not to love about that?