“You say Bonjour against that,” calls a large, elongated screen about ‘prize -winning baguette’ to customers at the entrance of a Jumbo in the middle of the center of Groningen. A little later an offer for cherries comes by, and ‘everything’ is brought to the attention of ‘a successful party’.
A TV with advertising messages is hanging above the self -scank masses. There the Jumbo Extren app is promoted, with which customers can save points and get personal offers. In the background, Jumbo Radio can be heard in the store, which alternates music while shopping with advertising for the organic range.
With competitor Albert Heijn it is not much different: the screens from hand scanners that are ready at the entrance are ongoing offers and savings campaigns. Plus has beamers who project logos of brands on the shop floor. It is as if the supermarket, where there is a constant struggle for the attention and favor of the consumer, has itself become a big advertising column.
Retailmedia are the visible expression of the data game that is played at the back
The sounds and screens are examples of retail media: Shops like Advertising. That is a growing source of income for supermarkets. Retailmedia are also the visible expression of the data game that is played on ‘the back’. The point is to have both customers and brand producers spent as much as possible. Spill in the web are the customer cards and apps from supermarkets. The receipts are stored in the apps. Here you can see that they belong to the same person and that data can be combined with other data. The supermarket can, among other things, use that knowledge about the customer to make producers pay more to show the customer an offer, exactly when it is the most sensitive to it.
Previously investigated NRC With the help of readers and their customer card data how offers are being done more and more in exchange for data. Only participants in loyalty programs receive all offers. But what do supermarkets do when customers use their app and share data about themselves? Can it be earned for them?
Read also
Also read: Do you want supermarket discount? Then your data, please
So -called retail media are part of the answer, because on a targeted promotion on their own platform, the supermarkets deserve much more than on a pot of peanut butter. Due to competition from discount chains, supermarkets have started to earn less with their core activity, the sale of food. The margin at European chains is around 2 percent, says Adgild Hop from the Deloitte consultancy. “If supermarkets managed to get a few percent of their turnover from advertisements, that can quickly doubl the win at the bottom of the line,” Op Schet. “The margins on that are so much higher.”
“We are a very interesting advertising channel,” says Lisette Fransen. She is at the head of Jumbo’s Retailmedia department. “Millions of customers do groceries with us every week, and they are also in a purchasemood. “
360-degree model
Nowadays, campaigns go as much as possible via the “360-degree model”. What you see in the physical store and in the digital world is tailored to each other and to the customer as much as possible. Digital screens offer the possibility to adjust immediately. “If the weather becomes very nice, you can sit behind the buttons and make sure that the matching advertisement is still live today.” For ice creams or barbecue products for example.
For this, supermarkets must make their knowledge lead at the manufacturers. Unilever, Nestlé and Pepsico only know how much shampoo, chocolate bars or bags of chips they sell to a retail chain, not who the consumer is. Retail chains know exactly which target group buys at what time and what those consumers choose if the desired product is not in stock.
Advertisement space In a Jumbo store.
Photo John van Hamond
“Suppliers can buy data from retailers or research agencies, but that costs them a lot of money and then they only get data at store level, not about individual customers,” says Victor de Graaff. He has been promoted on recommendation systems and advises organizations with his company D-data organizations on how to better use their data. “The data that supermarkets collect themselves are very accurate. They see exactly which offers attract customers that normally go to another store, and can keep an eye on how consumers, for example, switch from an A-brand to house brand products,” De Graaf explains.
Because we all collect and use our data with the permission of the customers, we are not bothered by the cookie issue
“Supermarkets also keep track of which days and times certain products are popular. With that you can time discount promotions: for example, beer only on offer on Friday and Saturday, or bring an offer to the right target group via a certain channel.”
A new battlefield are payment dates. Lidl allows customers to link a debit card to the Lidl app, so that they have the total amount canceled immediately from their account when scanning their customer card. That makes the German supermarket company less dependent on the payment services of Apple and Google.
Supermarkets don’t want to say much about the merits of their advertising branches. Earlier AH mother company Ahold Delhaize estimated That with RetailMedia this year European retailers could earn 21 billion euros. Jumbo also calls it “a huge growth market in which we have great ambitions”.
Read also
Groceries are becoming more and more expensive for the privacy -conscious supermarket customer
Better Business Model
Supermarkets have been struggling for years to get home delivery of groceries just as profitable as their physical stores. At the same time, a web store offers a lot of room for advertisements and personalization. In a digital environment, everything can be tailored to a specific customer. That is not possible in a physical store. “That income makes e-commerce more profitable,” says Fransen of Jumbo. “That ultimately ensures that the total business model improves.”
Thanks to customer cards, preferably linked to a supermarket app, store behavior can be followed closely and supermarkets know better who their customers are. “There you can link different data sources to each other; you can see that it is the same person,” says De Graaff.
Based on purchasing behavior shown, it can be predicted what a customer probably wants and can be made in a targeted recommendations and offers. The effect is comparable to that of language models of AI-Chatbots, De Graaff explains. “Minced plus tomato sauce means that the next product in the basket is grated cheese.” Not every product has such a predictive value. “Bananas are not unique, everyone buys it. But if people often buy puffed spelled spelled, it is an important indication of what else they will buy.”
With our customer card we can now string receipts together and link them to a customer
That measures closely, because a wrong recommendation arouses resentment with a customer. You can only offer a vegetarian a few times before that is.
And in the end everything is a commercial assessment. De Graaff explains: “Do I have to make you a depth offer? Or just give you the feeling that you have bought something in the offer? Or do I just put the best margin at the top of the recommendations?”
“We already had data by receipt,” says Franssen of Jumbo. “But with our customer card we can now string receipts together and link to a customer. Then you can really see his preferences. Based on the groceries that someone does, you can distract things about demography, family composition, which products someone likes to buy. Or that it likes to try out new products.”
From this, Jumbo also deduces what type of home chef someone is. “If you are a ‘convenience tub’ who often buys meal packages, new sauces from Knorr or Honig are relevant. But if you prefer to buy the tomatoes and peppers yourself to put together a sauce, we recommend our new packages.”
The quality of the data is high and that makes the data files valuable. Fransen: “Because everyone regularly does shopping, the data is always up to date. A change in family composition can be noticed in purchasing behavior.”
Jumbo has its own Radio Studio.
Photo John van Hamond
Want to know more than Meta
After an extensive promotion campaign – for example for sugar -free soft drinks – with newsletters, messages on social media, groceries on the hand scanners and, if desired, a tasting in the store, a retailer can measure the long -term effect.
“We can see extras through Jumbo whether customers buy the product and whether they will continue to buy it or not,” says Fransen. “Then we can send customers an offer via the Jumbo app, where they save extra points, for example, by buying another can of sugar-free soft drinks. We see exactly how many customers have bought something, while, for example, they never bought sugar-free soft drinks. For example, we know better and the goal that we and manufacturers have with a certain campaign is also achieved.”
It is precisely the latter point that distinguishes retailers from the advertising options that tech companies offer. “We know whether or not customers have bought the product, that’s something that Google doesn’t know,” says Fransen. “Due to stricter cookie legislation, advertisers are less able to reach on the tech platforms. Because we all collect and use our data with the permission of the customers, we are not bothered by the cookie issue.”
The search is now for the right dosage. You can chase customers away with screaming commercial groceries or wrong offers. “It should not be a fair,” says Fransen. What works well when booking a flight or hotel room does not do that for vegetables in a supermarket. “If you look at a cucumber online, it is also difficult to say:” Eight people have just bought it, it’s almost finished! “
About this series
Shop apps and customer cards that give a discount in exchange for transaction data are on the rise. More than a thousand reactions came to a reader’s call from NRC to share with this. In the coming period we will try to quantify how many discount customers can get with this, why supermarkets want this data so much and what the consequences are of an increasingly personalized supermarket.
1 Do you want supermarket discount? Then your data, please
2 Groceries are becoming more and more expensive for the privacy -conscious supermarket customer
3 New in the supermarket: advertising space. ‘The margins on that are so much higher’