By Eric Pereira / content creator
As a coupon platform with more than five billion transactions under its belt, AppCard’s focus has been on empowering grocers to communicate with shoppers through personalized offers and awards derived from shopper purchase history and future intent, said Yair Goldfinger, co-founder and CEO.
New York-based AppCard is a shopper analytics, personalized marketing and digital coupons company. Among other things, the company is focusing in 2022 on enabling grocers to gain additional access to more local CPG content and funding in an effort to further close the gap between the two.
“While offering CPGs a unique platform centered on direct communications with shoppers – with both acquisition and retention in mind – AppCard safeguards the grocer’s data and the shopper’s privacy,” Goldfinger said.
“For all of these reasons, we have built a media team composed of CPG executives who know and understand the industry needs and requirements in order to ensure the entire supply chain is brought together more closely and efficiently.”
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, AppCard has made changes and adjustments to ensure that grocers, wholesalers and CPG brands are brought closer together.
“Fueled by listening to the market and our retail partners, we have enhanced our development efforts with one mission at hand – to offer independent grocers access to technology and AI that allows them to compete with the national grocers in an affordable way,” Goldfinger said.
He added that AppCard has on-boarded hundreds of new stores, extended partnerships and introduced new coupon capabilities that increased engagement by five times in 2021.
Goldfinger mentioned the company also is continuing its relationship with Intel IoT Alliance and Intel Partner Connect as a Gold partner to simplify the way that data is captured and sent to the cloud.
“This is where Pinky comes in. Pinky is our machine learning and AI engine that does its magic and produces unmatched personalized marketing and reporting,” Goldfinger explained. “Powered by Intel CPU, the latest AppCard Jbrain is a unique capability that offers more complex promotions such as TPR, two-tier pricing, continuity or community rewards.
“Like those before it, this version of Jbrain is the only one today that offers an off-line mode to secure continuous supportability.”
AppCard partners with many wholesalers, ad groups and POS resellers. It works with more than 1,500 grocers throughout the country, from single store operations to large regional chains.
Product promotion
As a data-at-heart company, Goldfinger said AppCard helps promote products through the following ways:
- Digital coupons – whether nationally aggregated, wholesaler sourced, private label or retailer provided.
- Hundreds of different automated campaigns and offer modules that allow the retailer to promote products in accordance with program KPIs.
- AppCard combines POS data with CRM and marketing all on the same dashboard, making sure the correct offer is sent to the shopper at the right time. Promotion of products is communicated via text, email, its in-lane terminal and mobile app.
- AppCard’s proprietary in-lane terminal, the NTR, is the primary consumer touch point. Once shoppers identify themselves at checkout, they will see all available coupons and promotions, and be able to view missed coupons that can be clipped for future purchases.
Going above and beyond
Goldfinger shared a recent event that demonstrated AppCard’s solution going above and beyond for grocers. Neiman’s Family Market, a Michigan-based grocer, held a “Shrimp Fest” promotion designed to boost shrimp sales during October and November through AppCard.
The promotion consisted of email and text campaigns to members about the shrimp sales, along with a few member-exclusive shrimp offers. The offer was a bulk shrimp sale pricing for members only on Oct. 30, 2021. Some of the metrics included:
- A 1,463 percent year-over-year sales increase on shrimp (16 units sold on Oct. 30, 2020, compared to 250 units sold on Oct. 30, 2021);
- Email sent to 15,071 shoppers on Oct. 12, 2021, which 3,130 people opened;
- 524 shoppers spent $28,080 altogether on that day alone; and
- About 34 percent of email recipients made a shopping trip.
For more information, visit appcard.com.
