Another Groceryshop has come and gone, celebrating the innovations and victories of the industry while surveying the biggest challenges. Whereas previous years focused on differing, advanced tech concepts—from omnichannel retail to the metaverse to AI—Groceryshop 2024 felt comparatively like a return to basics: a focus on genuinely accurate, effective, and actionable data.
Even in discussions concerning AI, a point of repeated emphasis was what data an AI had access to and whether it would allow AIs to produce strong, value-generating outputs. In other words, rather than utilizing AI for its own stake, retailers discussed whether it was really generating a return on investment, reflecting on how strong data held the key to those returns.
Certainly, pinpointing how and when AI is most effective is critical when many initially enthusiastic investors attracted to AI have begun to wonder if and when it will all pay off.
As Cedric Chereau, Managing Director at EagleAI, notes for today’s service providers it’s all about convincing retailers that new tech innovations can usher in “the next generation of loyalty and promotion.”
Responding to Inflation in Grocery: Value Through Personalization
Retailers must find a way to respond to growing challenges–many tied to the sharp rise in the cost of living–that are pressing on margins in a way that hasn’t been seen in years.
“Every person in America is very sensitive to inflation. We are still in the midst of high prices,” noted Philippe Bottine, CEO Americas with VusionGroup, going on to emphasize the importance of promotions that are targeted and help consumers to feel a real sense of value, value that has become perhaps the key component for consumer loyalty in a cash-strapped America.
In that sense, this year’s Groceryshop was also focused on how to best leverage tech to personalize shopping experiences, so that the best deals get in front of the right customers.
VusionGroup has been a leader in promoting electronic shelf labels in recent years; to great success.“Dynamic pricing is a topic that has already come up several times, and connected with that are electronic shelf labels which appear to be on the verge of breaking through as a common practice in the North American retail business,” notes James Tenser, President of VSM Media, LLC., highlighting that this method of personalized shopping feels all but normalized.
The Store of Tomorrow: Personalized, Sleek, Efficient
With the advancement of varying technologies aimed at next-generation retail, a coherent, achievable vision for the future has taken shape.
One of the stand-out demos at this year’s Groceryshop was the ‘Stores of Tomorrow,’ exhibit; an open plan, modernist store layout that creates a sense of space while delivering value to consumers through targeted displays, promotions, and smart automation; a peek into what the future will hold
What exactly a ‘next-gen retail store’ looks like varies at each touch point. For example, the future of checkout systems is AI-powered with computer-vision-powered produce identification, automated age verification, and smarter theft protection through Diebold Nixdorf’s unique solutions. This helps to address longstanding complaints about self-checkout processes while improving the bottom line for retailers concerned about shrink.
Several other providers were also highlighted, such as Brain Corp’s autonomous solutions aimed at enhancing inventory visibility, remote store management, and more intelligent floor care through the use of non-threatening in-store robots and other integrated solutions.
Guac highlighted a similar innovation with AI-powered demand forecasting and replenishment solutions for fresh grocers. This inventory management solution is designed to streamline one of the biggest challenges in modern retail when it comes to operational efficiency: keeping produce quality high while minimizing waste and retaining high levels of availability for discerning customers.
Also on display was Foodstorm by Instacart, a streamlined food service operations platform designed to boost sales by improving in-store processes to create the seamless experiences today’s time-sensitive customer interactions require. From real-time ordering to custom bakery orders to special holiday catering, this solution is able to scale up and down to retail needs per season.
Ultimately, the right combination of solutions allows customers to experience a higher-quality, seamless in-store experience while associates are better supported.
“The grocery industry, specifically, is going through such a massive disruption,” said Sushant Warikoo, SVP & Business Unit Head for Retail at Cognizant, speaking at the AI in Retail (AiR) sessions with Microsoft. “In the midst of this, we’d love to see what service providers are bringing to the fore in terms of technology to help the grocers focus on what is most important: the customer.” Cognizant is an IT service provider and consultant that specializes in hyper-personalized, next-generation, and AI-native solutions.
With today’s better-informed customers, Warikoo argues that “brands have to now really change and transform themselves to drive a new value exchange between the brand and the customer. There’s a lot of focus on how you drive a larger value proposition, how you create the right experiences whether [customer or associate].”
Yet, while the customer is the end goal, retailers must understand that to reach them they need to invest not just in tech but the associates that create human touch points that engage, inform, and ultimately convert. Associates have required more investment and attention over the last 5 years, argued Keith Mercier, VP WW Retail and Consumer Goods Industry at Microsoft. Today, they should be a primary focus rather than overshadowed:
“So much has been aimed at supply chain optimization…optimizing personalization through marketing and building better commerce. But a lot of that now falls on the shoulders of the sales associate because they’re executing a lot of those new strategies,” said Mercier.
In order for those strategies to work, associates need to not only feel that support through investments designed to improve their workflows and take tedious tasks off their hands but also have accurate data available to them to make informed customer decisions.
This continued evolution only highlights the urgency of valid (and preferably first-party) data when it comes to retail excellence in 2024 and beyond. Simply running the smartest, latest AI solution isn’t enough; if it isn’t leveraged to collect first-party data or otherwise have access to accurate consumer data, its insights will be middling or, worse, misleading.
Groceryshop 2024 helped to remind retailers of that while emphasizing that when it comes to innovation, the future is bright for an industry growing into a new era.
Stay tuned for our upcoming AiR Highlights at Groceryshop 2024. Check out Retail Cloud Alliance‘s top moments with experts from Microsoft, Kyndryl, Cognizant, and more!
