How Can Retailers Capitalize on Purchase Data?

Melissa Gonzalez on Mar 10, 2021

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Designed for retail leaders and lovers alike, Retail Refined explores the in-store technology of the future, challenges the industry’s preconceived notions, and brings together retail’s biggest names to understand the brand strategies that will define the next decade in retail.

Acquiring data is step one; understanding it and acting on it is what really matters. With data the fuel for better customer relationships, how can retailers capitalize? To answer the question, host Melissa Gonzalez spoke with Jonathan Silver, Founder and CEO of Affinity Solutions. Affinity Solutions is a data-driven intelligence platform, which helps companies develop stronger connections with buyers and grow their business.

The company began as a solution for banks to manage credit and debit card reward programs. Those entities would send all this payment data to the company, which they later realized they could leverage to help businesses make better decisions.

Silver described some of the latest trends, with the important disclaimer that all purchase data is anonymized. “The massive switch to online is obvious, but digging deeper into what that means. Was it delivery or curbside? Then also seeing that the behavior soon became a habit.”

Silver noted that certain categories and retailers had successes based on positioning. “The first wave was companies changing delivery solutions and messaging with empathy. The second wave is about personalization and convenience.”

They also discussed the opportunities with contactless payments and personalization. “With Google Pay, you’ve got an app within an app. The grocery store app knows what you bought, so there’s a connection between the two, which can then give recommendations,” he added.

Silver believes hyper-personalization is the future of big data in retail. He also notes that it will likely be consumer-driven, that they’ll “claim their data and permission it to have a personalized experience.” With this model, security and privacy are in the hands of the customer.