In contemporary marketing, personalisation has grown to be the most frequently used consumer
relationship building method.
Nonhle Luthuli. (Image supplied)
For many years businesses promised customers tailored experiences, whereas most of the personalisation approaches used remain relatively superficial: A first name in an email, an ad which is based on previous search and a product recommendation.
However, Checkers Sixty60 is particularly significant with the more interesting development where personalisation moves beyond communication and has begun to reshape the consumer experience itself.
Checkers Sixty60 stands out through its increasingly sophisticated application of machine learning, and its AI powered shopping assistant named Pixie.
This built in assistant creates custom grocery baskets per individual consumer and can predict the items they may need to restock.
This shows as a smart basket when you open the Checkers Sixty60 app, providing options of “regulars” a consumer may pick from and “something new” options that a consumer may wish to try out as well.
Checkers Sixty60 is moving towards a model of retail in which consumers do not simply interact with the digital supermarket, but with a platform that not only learns, but anticipates and responds to individual shopping behaviour.
This represents a fundamental shift from a marketing perspective, in which the brand is moving from personalising the message to personalising the journey.
This brings about another dimension that deserves greater attention to the Checker’s Sixty60’s strategy. Aside from the platform making grocery shopping efficient, it has also managed to make it more experiential.
This is particularly evident in the way in which Checkers Sixty60 introduces seasonal products, collectable items of the Checkers Sixty60 brand and other non-essential items into an environment where customers might have initially arrived to simply buy bread, milk and household necessities.
Personalisation as experience, not promotion
The traditional e-commerce model mainly comprised of a consumer identifying a need/want, searching for a product, evaluation of alternatives and then finally completing a purchase, which was fundamentally transactional shopping experience.
Grocery shopping is inherently repetitive, where consumers frequently purchase the same products and household essential, however, conventional online grocery platforms did not cater for this. Consumers would repeatedly have to navigate the same cognitive process: searching, comparing, selecting and reorder.
The Checkers Sixty60 application of machine learning has removed this friction with the introduction of Pixie.
The strategic significance of Pixie is rather than having to wait for consumers to articulate every need through a search bar, the application uses behavioural signals including; purchase history, shopping frequency and preferences, to anticipate what may be most relevant to individual consumers.
This saves consumers time, reduces effort required in shopping and helps them make better decisions.
From recommendation to anticipation
The Checkers Sixty60 evolution reflects a broad transition in the digital marketing environment: the movement from recommendation to the prediction of consumer needs. Due to how routine consumers must do grocery shopping, it has introduced a different behavioural dynamic because purchasing patterns now become highly predictable in digital platforms.
Checkers Sixty60 strategically used machine learning systems to create a rich behavioural dataset from which machine learning systems can identify the recurring needs of each individual consumer.
The Smart Basket concept thus represents more than a convenience feature, but it demonstrates how behavioural data may be translated into a more proactive customer shopping experience. The customer no longer must remember everything but has an assistant helping them fill their shopping basket.
This is experiential marketing in a digital environment. Traditionally, experiential marketing aims to create memorable interactions between brands and consumers. It engages sensory stimuli, emotions, memories as well as participation rather than merely relying on rational product attributes.
The brand has also overcome the challenge that is faced by many retailers of being unable to replicate the physical experience of walking through a store and discovering something on a shelf unexpectedly, however, Checker Sixty60 has recreated the psychology of discovery.
For instance, a seasonal product being placed strategically on the checkout cart or the “quick shops” option can become a digital equivalent of the impulse purchase at the supermarket checkout. This is significantly where the distinction between convenience and engagement becomes important.
The customer may have entered the application for a functional reason, but the retailer has an opportunity to create a moment of discovery and evoke stimulating shopping experiences.
The future of grocery retail may be less about shopping
The most interesting implication of Checkers Sixty60's strategy perhaps is that the future of digital grocery retail may comprise of simultaneously making the shopping experience of consumers easier and more engaging.
The technology has removed the repetitive work where consumer had to remember staples, searching for goods and rebuilding familiar basket, to where the application remembers past activities and shopping baskets, creating a space for a shopping experience that allows for discovery, inspiration and emotional purchasing.
Checkers Sixty60 initially started by promising quick grocery deliveries, moving to its next competitive advantage which is more ambitious involving an intelligent shopping environment that understands what consumers need, anticipates their wants and occasionally induce impulsive buying in their platform.
That is the real evolution from personalisation to prediction, and from transaction to experience.
The future of digital grocery retail will not belong simply to brands whose platforms know what consumers purchased previously.
It will belong to the brands that understand why consumers purchased it, anticipate what consumers may need next, and create moments of discovery that make the consumer’s shopping experience feel personal, relevant and even enjoyable.
