By Felipe Rosa, TOTVS Retail Offer Manager
Have you ever thought if you had the predictability of your customers' consumption at hand, based on the tracks they leave on digital media? With the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (or AI) in the lives of people and companies, this is already easily applicable, also, to the supermarket sector. Using this technology, it is possible to collect a lot of information and make a predictive analysis to find patterns of consumer behavior. In practice, this means anticipating future events - building on the past and keeping track of trends - in order to avoid possible impacts and take advantage of new business opportunities.
A good way to start is to analyze the products and their combinations to make a comparison in relation to the profiles of those who consume them and, thus, make new suggestions of what each one may like. For example, for people who buy wine, why not suggest and leverage cheese sales with a targeted promotion? It is not just the user's profile, but a package of products that can be consumed together, something that only AI is able to identify. In this way, the supermarket offers new shopping experiences to its customers, through personalized offers - and not just generalist pamphlets, available to everyone who enters the stores.
Another change brought about by Artificial Intelligence is in an important process for the sector, that of price comparison with the competition, which, in the traditional model, is not very functional. Moving one (or more) employees to check on-site products, with paper spreadsheets, may not be as strategic anymore. It is much more interesting to put the technology to work for you, establishing a comparison of values online and in real time. Dynamic pricing with AI is an ally to help supermarkets better perform their price management.
Just as we already see at Uber, for example, in which at peak times the values of the races go up, supermarket companies now have this same ability to change the value of their products, according to demand or variations. For example, at the beginning of the day, when the FLV section (fruits, vegetables and greens) is fresh, you can charge more expensive than at the end of the day, when the quality of the goods has already been lost.
All of this, combined with electronic tags, will be able to completely change the pricing practice. With just one click, the manager can change the price of items in all of his stores, only in e-commerce or both - for a specific time or just on chosen days, in short, in the way he deems best for his business. In addition, the technology can be parameterized to do this alone, following rules stipulated for each of the situations, which can be influenced by several factors, such as product standards, the flow of people in the store and even temperature and climate - that's why , we talk about dynamic pricing.
Another possibility is to combine facial recognition with Artificial Intelligence for the analysis of these images in a database. At Amazon Go, for example, opened earlier this year - in Seattle, the customer does not need to go through boxes or attendants - for that, the entire environment is monitored by a system of many cameras and QR Codes. All these images and data can be analyzed by Artificial Intelligence, to understand the pattern of consumers' behavior, define who is in the store at that moment and support the manager in the best pricing of their products or even to make a flash promotion that is of interest to those people.
The power of management
Going a step further, in addition to the most common pains of the supermarket, with AI you start to have business opportunities at hand, which, until then, went unnoticed. It is a large volume of data analyzed and crossed with innumerable information to find patterns, which the human being would not be able to do alone. With this, the trends of what is to come are formed, based on several variables, such as the weather, days of the week, seasonality, demands, economic factors, among others. The big turning point is not to wait any longer for something to affect your business and then take action. It is to stop looking at your operation through the rearview mirror and start to foresee the possibilities, aiming at better results.
The journey of the digital transformation of retail is moving towards predictive management and the sooner you start this process, the more competitive it will be in the market. The Brazilian supermarket segment closed 2017 with sales of R$ 353.2 billion (according to the 41st ABRAS Ranking Survey) - an increase of 4.3% in relation to last year - and the expectation is to increase 3% in 2018.
The moment is for recovery and, certainly, those who put innovation into practice will come out ahead. The use of technology comes to boost consumption, bring greater assertiveness to everyday decisions and generate better shopping experiences for customers. And you, have you thought about the steps of your digital transformation?
A good way to start is to analyze the products and their combinations to make a comparison in relation to the profiles of those who consume them and, thus, make new suggestions of what each one may like. For example, for people who buy wine, why not suggest and leverage cheese sales with a targeted promotion? It is not just the user's profile, but a package of products that can be consumed together, something that only AI is able to identify. In this way, the supermarket offers new shopping experiences to its customers, through personalized offers - and not just generalist pamphlets, available to everyone who enters the stores.
Another change brought about by Artificial Intelligence is in an important process for the sector, that of price comparison with the competition, which, in the traditional model, is not very functional. Moving one (or more) employees to check on-site products, with paper spreadsheets, may not be as strategic anymore. It is much more interesting to put the technology to work for you, establishing a comparison of values online and in real time. Dynamic pricing with AI is an ally to help supermarkets better perform their price management.
Just as we already see at Uber, for example, in which at peak times the values of the races go up, supermarket companies now have this same ability to change the value of their products, according to demand or variations. For example, at the beginning of the day, when the FLV section (fruits, vegetables and greens) is fresh, you can charge more expensive than at the end of the day, when the quality of the goods has already been lost.
All of this, combined with electronic tags, will be able to completely change the pricing practice. With just one click, the manager can change the price of items in all of his stores, only in e-commerce or both - for a specific time or just on chosen days, in short, in the way he deems best for his business. In addition, the technology can be parameterized to do this alone, following rules stipulated for each of the situations, which can be influenced by several factors, such as product standards, the flow of people in the store and even temperature and climate - that's why , we talk about dynamic pricing.
Another possibility is to combine facial recognition with Artificial Intelligence for the analysis of these images in a database. At Amazon Go, for example, opened earlier this year - in Seattle, the customer does not need to go through boxes or attendants - for that, the entire environment is monitored by a system of many cameras and QR Codes. All these images and data can be analyzed by Artificial Intelligence, to understand the pattern of consumers' behavior, define who is in the store at that moment and support the manager in the best pricing of their products or even to make a flash promotion that is of interest to those people.
The power of management
Going a step further, in addition to the most common pains of the supermarket, with AI you start to have business opportunities at hand, which, until then, went unnoticed. It is a large volume of data analyzed and crossed with innumerable information to find patterns, which the human being would not be able to do alone. With this, the trends of what is to come are formed, based on several variables, such as the weather, days of the week, seasonality, demands, economic factors, among others. The big turning point is not to wait any longer for something to affect your business and then take action. It is to stop looking at your operation through the rearview mirror and start to foresee the possibilities, aiming at better results.
The journey of the digital transformation of retail is moving towards predictive management and the sooner you start this process, the more competitive it will be in the market. The Brazilian supermarket segment closed 2017 with sales of R$ 353.2 billion (according to the 41st ABRAS Ranking Survey) - an increase of 4.3% in relation to last year - and the expectation is to increase 3% in 2018.
The moment is for recovery and, certainly, those who put innovation into practice will come out ahead. The use of technology comes to boost consumption, bring greater assertiveness to everyday decisions and generate better shopping experiences for customers. And you, have you thought about the steps of your digital transformation?
Disclaimer: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
EN 
PT 
