PIM-System

As retailers celebrate the end of the holiday shopping season and anxiously plan for the new year, one subject is on everyone’s mind: data. There’s so much of it, so decision-makers must ask some hard questions in 2024. Is our data managed as a “single source of truth” for marketing and advertising decisions? Can they be utilised effectively – and ethically – for personalised marketing? How can our data work well with AI, eCommerce, or multichannel marketing?

Last month, we discovered that artificial intelligence, far from being a threat to retail marketing teams, is, in fact, an essential team player. The early results of using DecaSIM’s AI tools in conjunction with Comosoft LAGO showed that the two systems complement one another, each providing unique benefits for retail advertising and marketing directors.

A mere eleven months ago, OpenAI launched the public version of its AI-based, large language model, ChatGPT. In that short time, the noise surrounding AI has dominated the media, boardroom conversations, and almost every social gathering on the planet. Retail advertising and marketing directors everywhere are inundated with questions. “What are we doing about artificial intelligence – and how will we survive without it?”

Just like when a patron sits down to eat at a restaurant and expects to see some menu, your customers want to know what your brand has available for purchase. Diners at a restaurant want to read descriptions of what's on the menu, complete with ingredients and information like potential allergens and prices.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are significant days in the retail world. And in this increasingly digital world, more and more shoppers are headed online to find gifts, hunt for bargains, and deck the halls.

Consumer spending during the Holiday 2022 season shifted some, returning to more “typical” levels compared to the outsized holiday spending seen in 2020 and 2021, when consumers spent and shopped more – likely as a result of plans, trips, and others celebrations that were stifled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With all the media noise about “big data” and artificial intelligence (AI), it’s easy to forget that data has been at the heart of retail success since well before the digital era.

Without a doubt, Artificial Intelligence is the number one story of 2023, with breaking news and hyperbolic predictions popping up daily. Retailers and their partners are justifiably concerned. Retail marketing and advertising directors are asking what AI will mean for their current operations and the future of retail marketing in general.

Large, national retailers – and even smaller, regional ones – often must cope with several logistical and market challenges. One of these is the rapid proliferation of media channels. In each one, they must establish a good relationship with current and potential customers, preserving the retailer’s brand without sacrificing accuracy or time-to-market with each campaign.

In the course of digitization, consumer buying behavior has changed and, accordingly, so have consumer expectations of a brand's sales channels. More and more customers are shopping online and interacting with brands in new and interesting ways, as new technologies also constantly offer new opportunities for contact.