AI personalisation is transforming supermarket shopping experiences, leveraging customer data to enhance sales.
- Eagle Eye is integrating AI into loyalty schemes to encourage increased purchasing by shoppers.
- AI technology maps consumer preferences and tailors offers to incentivise larger purchases.
- Profitability in the retail sector may soon be dominated by those adopting hyper-personalisation through AI.
- Despite soaring profits, Eagle Eye’s stock saw a decline, highlighting market challenges.
Eagle Eye, renowned for facilitating loyalty schemes in major UK supermarkets, is strategically deploying AI to mould shopping behaviours and amplify spendings. Through the acquisition of Untie Nots, a French AI startup, Eagle Eye rebranded it as Eagle AI to augment their loyalty offerings. This integration aims to transform small shopping expeditions into extensive buying sprees, by determining how far they can stretch customer purchasing patterns.
Utilising AI, Eagle AI evaluates the shopping data from loyalty program participants. By sending strategic offers that align with predicted purchases, the intention is to increase sales volume and reward more lucrative consumer behaviours. This approach is evident from the words of Eagle Eye’s CEO, Tim Mason: ‘We’re not going to give you much of a reward for buying the three [products] that we predict you will buy next month, but if you buy four, eight, 10, then we will give you a significant reward to encourage you to move along.’
Further to this, Eagle AI employs sophisticated algorithms to ‘map products against consumers’, identifying products that are purchased and those that lie in close reach on the virtual shelf but remain unpurchased. Offers are then customised around these untapped yet potentially attractive products, tapping into increased personalisation capabilities.
Tim Mason also highlighted that the retail landscape is poised for a dichotomy, where those harnessing personalisation through AI will outperform others, becoming significantly more profitable. This pursuit of hyper-personalisation extends beyond pricing strategies; it aims to integrate into the entirety of the shopping experience, be it dietary preferences, cooking skills, or health necessities. The envisioned outcome is a highly tailored, Instagram-like feed from grocers compiling consumer interests.
Despite a laudable six-fold profit increase to £5.4 million and an 11% revenue boost to £47.7 million reported for the year ending June 2024, Eagle Eye’s shares fell by 6%. This decline in stock value, despite financial success, underscores the volatile nature of market perceptions and challenges within the sector even amidst innovation and growth.
AI-driven personalisation in supermarkets is proving to be a transformative force, albeit amidst market volatility.
