Food Retailers

E-commerce brands need a way to manage consistent, high-quality product information across print and digital channels. PIM systems can provide that single source of truth. Digital e-commerce (conducting business via the Internet) is nothing new. The first such transaction involved the sale of cannabis via ARPANET in the early 1970s. But ever since the recovery from the dot-com bust of the early 2000s, and especially since the emergence of smartphones, buying online is the new normal.

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?”

Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) brought to market by Chat-GPT and GPT-3 is a clear signal that AI is a viable technology for retail marketing departments. Integrated with Comosoft LAGO, the AI-based DecaSIM promotion ranking tool adds an additional layer of intelligence to the existing planning process, adding measurably to the impact of the weekly ad and on store profitability. 

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.

The weekly circular has long been a staple marketing and advertising tool for grocery chains and other large retailers. To cope with the disruptions of digital media, retailers have experimented with various ways to cut costs, sometimes discontinuing the printed versions of circulars (especially as newspaper inserts) only to bring them back in other ways. Recently, a national grocery retailer paused the printed versions of their weekly ads but then brought them back as regular mailers, with targeted promotions and QR codes to take customers to sale items on the website.

In information technology, the idea of a “single source of truth,” or SSOT, is a well-established practice. Simply put, in the context of databases, SSOT means that each piece of information is edited only in its leading system. It’s logical in theory but often difficult in practice.

Retail marketing has never been as complex to manage as it is now. Creative services and production managers must cope with the daily demands of promotional campaigns covering multiple locations on various print and digital channels. All this leaves little time to innovate and swiftly respond to emergencies and ad hoc requests.