Localized And Personalized eCommerce

One of the benefits of the technology and network improvements and especially in the last couple of years is the opportunity for retailers to personalize the offering a customer is shown and then the ability to alert customers to local specials and even alert customers of sale offerings when the consumer gets close to a retail outlet. These are big deals in the retail marketplace and the next logical step for retailers to utilize technology and consumer purchasing and shopping information that is collected through their rewards programs. This is my definition of localized and personalized; the ability to specialize offers based on location and then in addition the ability to personalize the offers based on consumer shopping and purchasing habits. The technology capabilities provide the retailer with additional information to target specific audiences to encourage shopping and purchasing.




The power of the technology is the ability to use the technology to localize interactions with others. Personalization provides two opportunities for interaction with consumers to focus the offering to the shopping and purchasing practices based on the individual and to reach out to the consumer as the are shopping or even entering into the localized retail outlet. You see more and more of this technology now from mobile technology and many apps from shopping, mapping, food and social networking. As an example mobile payment such as Google Pay, Samsung Pay or Apple Pay alert when you enter within a localized area that accept payment to provide reminders and offers. These technologies provide a great deal of opportunities to tie together the pieces and parts of both data and shopping capabilities into a compelling offering of reminders and hints that generate snap purchases that may not have happened without the nudge.




I believe this is the next area of consumer focus and opportunity and will drive the next wave of transformation through the retail network. The previous wave focused on demands to support shopping and purchasing operational capabilities for purchasing and delivery across the marketplace and channels. Those changes flattened the channels into an omni channel marketplace. Now the next wave of social demands will focus on connectivity and personalization across the marketplace to extend the omni market capabilities and most importantly extend the direct consumer contact across the extended supply chain collaborative network and the network partners.




There is another transformation in the marketplace to refocus the center of control from retailers to the customer to allow the customer to customize shopping and purchasing based on their needs or demands at the time of shopping. This transformation brings together the supply chain partners and service providers with the consumers as the center of the shopping network. This is really the next step in a virtual mall where retailers ‘cohabitate’ in the virtual mall as participants and the extended supply chain partners come together to provide the framework of goods and services to support this virtual mall concept. This is where the next wave of transformation will be focused and in this wave the focus will be on localized and personalized eCommerce to bring the consumer to the table. This will be the focus of the next wave and will drive the next wave of disruption that retailers must address.