Tyler Renaghan, VP of grocery at Upside, visited with The Griffin Report following Groceryshop 2024 in Las Vegas. The app from the Washington, D.C.-based technology company rewards cash back to users through partnerships with retailers. The scope of its services includes all aspects of retail, but the grocery industry in particular has used it to draw customers through the doors.
What is new at Upside?
Between our own app and our network of partner apps, Upside’s offers now reach 35 million consumers across America. This growth has attracted more grocers to the platform, with hundreds of Giant Eagle, El Rancho, Save A Lot and Northgate stores joining the Upside marketplace in recent months.
In order to protect partner profitability, we’ve actually stopped accepting new retailers in markets such as St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Albany, New York, because too many retailers on Upside in one area could create a “race to the bottom.”
What are some of your key takeaways from the show?
I’d say we had two major takeaways. First, we noticed a desire among grocers to better understand their customers and use that knowledge to give them personalized experiences.
Retailers can use customer data, machine learning and AI tools to create unique experiences that resonate more deeply with their shoppers. There’s a line, of course – too much personalization can feel invasive and downright creepy. But grocers agree that the right amount of personalization is important to their customers and important to their business.
Additionally, we heard a lot about finding ways to translate digital engagement – placing online orders, or watching ads on social media, or browsing coupons and offers – into actual in-store volume.
We heard some really impactful stories: Chad Petersen, the SVP of digital and e-commerce at Lowes Foods, said he wants to digitally engage customers the second they walk into a store, because they’ve found [that doing so] makes more trips.
But a lot of grocers are still trying to figure out how to tie their digital efforts to in-store traffic. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here because many strategies bridge that gap, including digital marketplaces.
What are some of the biggest challenges that grocery retailers are facing?
The biggest challenge we see grocers facing today is that there are more uncommitted customers than ever. Also described as secondary, tertiary, irregular or occasional, these shoppers spread their trips around to different grocers. They do so without regard for brand loyalty, so that they can maximize the value they receive from every transaction. They think primarily about their own lives and how to maintain their standards of living without changing their budgets.
Uncommitted customers are digital and on-the-go, with everything they need to make buying decisions right at their fingertips. These are hard-to-win customers, to be sure. But winning them is not impossible – it’s just about getting in front of them at the right time, in the right place, with the right incentive to get them to shop at your store. And with more uncommitted customers today, winning them profitably is critical to ensuring sustainable growth.
What are some opportunities that grocery retailers can take advantage of?
In terms of opportunities, my advice to grocers would be this: Take advantage of something exclusive, something that only you can access and your competitors can’t.
Across the industry, we’re seeing that almost every single retailer is on every single e-commerce platform. Many retailers used to be exclusive with just one or a few platforms, but we’re seeing them expand their relationships in order to capture as many customers as possible.
There are very few spaces where retailers can take advantage of something exclusive to them, but they do exist. And I would encourage grocers to find them and maximize those opportunities when they can.
What is Upside doing to help retailers navigate this market?
Upside profitably motivates behavior change, and we can prove it down to the customer level. No other platform does this.
At Giant Eagle, for example, Upside drove a three-times lift in trip frequency from the brand’s least loyal grocery shoppers, and 62 percent of new and non-loyalty customers we brought to Giant Eagle went on to join its myPerks program.
The brand independently validated Upside’s incremental revenue impact and expanded its partnership with us confidently.
[RELATED: Giant Eagle Joins Upside’s App For Cash-Back Promotions]
Anything else that you would like to mention?
Retail media networks are creating quite a bit of excitement, interest and – quite frankly – fear among retailers. I think retail media networks are good for customers, who are continually getting incentives to buy products, and they’re good for CPG companies, because they’re finding new surface areas to get in front of customers.
For grocers, I think the equation is a little less clear. Grocers want to take advantage of this digital experience for customers, monetize the data they can receive and get those funds from CPGs.
But the fear is that CPGs have also been paying to put products on grocery store shelves, and they could shift that spend away from in-store initiatives to third-party retail media networks, such as Instacart, and not the grocers’ own networks.
This area has the potential to go in a lot of different directions, and I’ll be tracking how it impacts grocers in the coming months and years.
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