Dive Brief:

• As its customer base grows more diverse, Ahold Delhaize says it's providing personalized promotions that incorporate customers’ shopping history and preferences, according to the Path to Purchase Institute.
• This includes personalized coupons emailed to shoppers, as well as a digital circular that highlights items that might be of interest to customers based on their shopping history. 
• Ahold Delhaize is also working to expand and further integrate its ecommerce platform, Peapod. According to company research, customers that both shop in stores and use Peapod spend twice as much as those who use just one channel.  

Dive Insight:

Ahold Delhaize’s focus on personalization highlights the importance of not just having great products, but connecting them with the right shoppers, too.

Indeed, with close to 40,000 products in the average supermarket, according to the Food Marketing Institute, it’s easy for shoppers to overlook items they might love. Personalized marketing works by mining loyalty data and other information to highlight these items in circulars, digital coupons and other materials sent to shoppers. Done right, it saves people time and increases loyalty.

The concept of personalization extends to other parts of the store, including product assortment and store layout. Locations that serve young, affluent consumers typically invest more in prepared foods, while those that serve older consumers tend to have a more robust pharmacy presence.

As stores get to know their shoppers better through advanced technology, they can zero in on their preferences and even anticipate demand. Whole Foods is using more digital coupons and targeted promotions focused on its highest-spending customers, while Kroger has invested in store technology that recognizes consumers through their smartphones and offers individualized pricing and recommendations as they walk the aisles.  

For traditional grocers especially, personalized marketing offers the chance to elevate their profile by showing customers that their stores have just what they need. It also scores efficiency points at a time when the typical shopping experience has become, to many, overly tedious.

Personalization also offers a way for brick-and-mortar retailers to compete against e-commerce competitors like Amazon. At the same time, as grocers continue to expand their own e-commerce ventures, they should take care to apply these same personalization tools to that experience as well with product recommendations, shopping histories, targeted deals and more.