Creating consumer shopping profiles where the consumer chooses to give brands access to their personal data and shopping habits will enhance the shopping experience for all. This is the view of Dr. Alexey Andriyanenko, co-founder and director of mobile shopping innovator Shopitize
Andriyanenko says smarter cross-channel shopping data will empower the consumer to connect with their favourite brands.The mobile shopping expert reassures doubters that it will not be like ‘big brother’ watching and evaluating every purchase, but rather linking and rewarding customers with what they like by anticipating their shopping habits.
“Today’s consumer expects brands to act not on insights but on foresights,” says Andriyanenko. “By building up individual shopping profiles, where the consumer gives brands access to their shopping habits, will enable these brands to anticipate what people want.
“The key is consumers owing their own data. Imagine that instead of a series of disconnected apps and solutions, all consumers’ purchase interactions are captured: all retail purchases, made via cash, credit or NFC, are captured at the product level, with prices and across all retail channels. Then overlay time, location, accepted offers, product searches and pricing. Add in expressed media preferences from social networks.
“The result is a rich data profile, a context which is vastly more comprehensive than what can be purchased from market research firms or from what is captured in single retailer loyalty schemes.
“Such a data will not only enable brands to understand, but also to anticipate consumer behaviour. Such data profiles provides the opportunity for unparalleled precision of targeting, one where promotional spend inefficiency can be dramatically decreased. In short, brands, retailers and services can become seamlessly embedded in the life of consumers while reducing overall promotional spending and wastage.”
Holistic shopping data profile
Andriyanenko also points out that while the significant benefits of a holistic shopping data profile are clear, making this possible calls for new mobile platforms capable of capturing, organizing, analysing and brokering this data on behalf of consumers.
“Capturing the data requires a tool that interacts with the plethora or innovative mobile and web applications and allows capturing discrete portions of the consumer shopping journey. It also means improved portability of existing consumer data trapped in retailer or service provider loyalty program databases.
UPC codes
“Organizing the information requires improved product comparability across retail channels. This will improve gradually over time as consumers have access to electronic point-of-sale data and as products are identified using UPC codes.
“Finally, to effectively enable brands, retailers and service providers to engage with consumers, the platform must enable access to anonymised data profiles. Based on analysis of such data profiles, brands, retailers and service providers can assess the optimal matches for their offers and marketing messages.
“And because consumers would own and be in control of their data asset, the platform empowers them to elect whether and how to share this information. Consumers are the ones who generate data. It is smartphones that can make gathering and processing their data possible.”