AI is Driving Market Personalization

When Gary Hawkings first started his career in retail, he didn’t know exactly where the road might take him. Rightfully, he has carved his own path and now sits down with host Christine Russo as the founder and CEO of CART, the Center of Advancing Retail and Technology to discuss CART’s purpose and the driving factors of change in the industry.

While Hawkings and CART specializes in CPG and grocery, its far more than that. Born about 10 years prior, CART was founded to have an influential and helpful hand on the technology driven changes in the market and industry.

“[I] saw that a lot of retailers really needed help in understanding and discovering what new tech, what new innovation is out there and understanding the implications of a lot of this new technology,” spoke Hawkings on creating CART.

He said, “Technology is triggering…this new competitive battleground,” which is driving changes across the industry. With technology changing everything from supply chain operations to in-store functions, Hawkings noticed that, “It’s the digitalization of the retail industry that is powering such transformation, such disruption.”

New AI research can build a profile of each shopper and compile all the information gathered to “strategically drive what specific promotions, not only what products but what pricepoints, or discounts, need to be provided to each individual customer to grow lifetime value, grow engagement,” explained Hawkings.

In traditional discount schemes, the brands take on retail marketing, “but as retailers…have become very cognizant of all their customer data, customer behavior and what’s happening” retailers have learned the power of individual marketing schemes to draw customers in.

As Hawkings stated, “Different markets in Europe are ahead of the U.S. right now,” in terms of computervision, however, what’s to come is certainly on the edge of the horizon.

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