In The News
Get insight into the power of Artificial Intelligence and access the latest research and trends in the Supermarket industry
Ron Bonacci is awarded Retail Innovator Award
Our retail partner, Ron Bonacci, of Weis Markets has received a Retail Innovator Award from Retail TouchPoints. Ron’s forward-thinking and innovative spirit keeps him at the forefront of the grocery retail industry. Congratulations, Ron!
Personalization Is Key to Online Grocery Sales and Online Retail
In this SalesTech Star guest article, Shekar Raman shares his thoughts on the importance of personalization in a successful grocery retail business.
How Grocers Can Compete with Subscription Food Services
In this Food Logistics article, Shekar Raman offers some sage advice for grocery retail when it comes to competing with subscription meal services like Hellofresh and Blue Apron.
Regional Grocers vs Instacart- What’s next?
Instacart allowed many grocers to pivot to e-commerce and pick up/delivery models quickly during the height of the Pandemic. Gary Hawkins explains why grocers should be wary of Instacart.
The Customer Intelligence Platform: Customer Data Platforms’ Older Sibling
Technology is moving so fast and it is hard to find the time to figure out what is right for you. In this article, featured in MarTech Series, Shekar Raman explains the difference between a Customer Intelligence Platform and a Customer Data Platform.
Soup-To-Nuts Podcast: AI can help retailers struggling with labor shortage do more with less
Shekar Raman not only hosts a #podcast but is often a guest! This week he appears on FoodNavigator’s Soup-To-Nuts podcast. He speaks with Elizabeth Crawford about how retailers can leverage AI to alleviate the strain of labor shortages in the grocery industry.
Loyalty and Personalization: Why They Aren’t the Same Thing
Shekar Raman shares his thoughts on the difference between loyalty and personalization. Read it on page five.
SalesTechStar Interview With Shekar Raman, CEO and Co-founder at Birdzi
In this interview with SalesTech Star, Shekar Raman talks about #AI in the grocery retail sector. He explains the benefits #retailers can expect when they employ strategic personalization in their stores. It’s not about the technology, the technology exists, it’s about partnering with the right people to make the retailer’s data work for them.
Interview with Shekar Raman, CEO and Co-founder, Birdzi
Our own CEO and Co-founder Shekar Raman gets interviewed by AI‐TechPark about Birdzi and his own insights into the retail technology.
The Hybrid Store Starts with a Personalized Experience at Home
Gary Hawkins of CART: How To Create A Fantastic Retail Experience That Keeps Bringing Customers Back For More
Harps Launches Mobile Rewards Program With Birdzi, Helping the Grocer Build Loyalty, Personalization, and Digital Engagement
Ways to further digital engagement for private labels
Shekar Raman of Birdzi: How To Create A Fantastic Retail Experience That Keeps Bringing Customers Back For More
Coborn’s Partners with Birdzi to Enhance Loyalty Program, Increasing Retention and Spend
COBORN’S PARTNERS WITH BIRDZI TO ENHANCE LOYALTY PROGRAM, INCREASING RETENTION AND SPEND
Case Study: Coborn’s Enhances More Rewards Loyalty Program with Birdzi, Growing Membership and Digital Engagement
Summary Established in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota in 1921, Coborn’s, Inc services 120+ grocery, convenience, liquor, and other retail locations throughout the Midwest United States. The employee-owned company strives to live out its vision to be...
From Increased Fulfillment to Drones, Here’s the Latest Trends in Food Logistics
UNFI has reached a long-term supply agreement with Key Food Stores
Digital customer engagement solution provider Birdzi has launched Visper, a personalization capability proven to increase customer sales, visits and retention for regional supermarket retailers.
Weis Markets Launches New Personalization Tool
Digital customer engagement solution provider Birdzi has launched Visper, a personalization capability proven to increase customer sales, visits and retention for regional supermarket retailers. Weis Markets is the first retailer to use the new technology, which is rolling out to other grocers such as Coborn’s and Niemann Foods soon.
Harps Food Stores plays personalized tune for shoppers
chain store ageHarps Foods Stores, an employee-owned supermarket retailer operating 96 stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas, is deploying customer engagement marketing tools from Birdzi…
Nimble or Not?
Trying to compete with the big guys in today’s ever-changing retail world can be a hard hill to climb for independent grocery businesses. We don’t have the budgets, the manpower, or the sheer geographic...
Customer Intelligence as a Service
Retailers of any size that fail to understand competition has fundamentally changed—from decades of product-driven practices to a true customer focus driven by share-of-wallet and lifetime value—are destined for a challenging future....
Retail Success Depends on How You Answer These Questions
Retail success today and going forward is dependent on customer focus—how well the retailer serves each and every shopper. Retailers can shift from a product focus to a customer focus by asking several key questions from the perspective of the...
Weis Markets Launches Dietitian-Hosted Podcast
winsight grocery businessWeis Markets has announced the launch of a new podcast, “Weis HealthyBites,” in which two registered dietitians share nutritional guidance and lifestyle tips with listeners…
Weis Markets engages more closely with customers
SN supermarket newsWeis Markets aims to get closer to its shoppers with the adoption of an artificial intelligence (AI)-based customer engagement system…
Costco: first New Zealand store
fresh plazaLidl has revealed its £500mln expansion program in the capital, as well as its plan to open the first ever central London store on Tottenham Court Road…
Weis Taps Birdzi to Boost Customer Engagement
winsight grocery businessWeis Markets has partnered with customer engagement ecosystem provider Birdzi to support the retailer’s customer-driven strategy in the Mid-Atlantic region it serves…
Weis Markets Turns to Artificial Intelligence to Personalize the Experience
RIS NewsWeis Markets’ AI-powered relationship engine tailors the shopping experience in real-time, allowing the retailer to build meaningful relationships with its customers…
Retail at a Crossroads: Autonomous Efficiency or Enriching Relationships
Join us for a webcast Thursday, June 20, 2019. New capabilities are rapidly bringing retailers to a crossroads with the choice of two very different future paths. Robotics, automation, and Amazon Go-like self-shopping provide a highly efficient,...
Pseudo Customer Centricity: Fool’s Gold
Retailers must employ a customer-first philosophy into organizational culture. By Gary Hawkins. Many regional retailers are (at last!) intent on becoming customer-centric, more than a decade after The Kroger Co. led the way and more than two...
Customer Touch Points and the Human Experience
I was visiting someone in the hospital the other day and, looking about the room, noticed an Amazon Echo installed on the wall opposite the hospital bed. There was a sign under the device telling patients that they could ask Alexa to call their...
News : Harps Food Stores Selects Birdzi’s Customer Engagement Ecosystem
contact center worldBirdzi, a supermarket industry customer engagement ecosystem, announced that Harps Food Stores has chosen to deploy Birdzi’s customer engagement marketing tools…
New retail technology aims to bring customers back to the store
UPIImagine the grocery store of the future — drones buzzing about, eyeballing shelves for out-of-stock or misplaced items. Customers using voice-activated assistants to shop and cash in personalized coupons. It’s nearer than you might think…
The Amazon Doctrine and the Innovation Arms Race
Observations on how traditional retailers can best compete with the world’s leading e-tailer. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has long understood the value of being out in front as technology innovation fundamentally alters the rules of competition. While...
EnsembleIQ Launches the 2018 Retail Technology Innovation Index – The 75 Most Innovative Companies in Retail Technology
PRWebEnsembleIQ announces the launch of its benchmarking platform for suppliers of technology solutions for the retail industry. The Retail Technology Innovation Index, produced by EIQ Research Solutions…
Leveraging Shopper Insights From Chaos to Action
Three steps to help retailers make sense of the chaos of new data and capabilities. Multidimensional shopper data is the new primordial ooze giving rise to powerful insights leading to increased retail performance. Novel technologies are providing...
E-Commerce 2.0 Comes of Age
Why retailers’ first-generation e-commerce initiatives are no longer enough. Primed by studies projecting 20% of industry sales moving online within the next few years and triggered by Amazon’s aggressive moves to grow its online grocery...
Looking for Sales Growth? Be Relevant to Your Shoppers
Personalization is a proven path to increasing sales... Every retailer is looking to increase sales, and there is no better way to do that than by providing savings on products each customer wants to buy. Marketing personalization is proven to...
The Convergence of Food and Health
Technology holds the key for retailers to leverage health and wellness cred. Food represents an estimated $5 trillion a year industry in the United States. Nearly everywhere we look in the physical world—and increasingly online—food is available,...
Tackling Retail’s Big Data Challenge
Data discipline can make or break a retailer’s success. Data has long powered modern retail, helping Walmart become a master of supply chain logistics and fueling Kroger’s customer-centric strategy. Artificial intelligence and the cloud are fueling...
Birdzi to Power New Personalized Wellness Program from ScriptSave, a Leading Provider of Prescription Drug Savings at 62,000 U.S. Pharmacies
BusinesswireBirdzi, a provider of personalized digital customer engagement solutions for grocery retailers, today announced that ScriptSave, a provider of prescription drug saving programs at 62,000 U.S. pharmacies, is launching a new WellRx Personalized Wellness program using the Birdzi platform…
Birdzi Secures Funding Round, Partners With Three Platform Providers
retail touchPointsBirdzi, a provider of personalized digital customer engagement solutions for grocery retailers, has closed a Series A funding round with REVTECH, a retail technology accelerator that focuses on high-growth ventures in retail, grocery and hospitality. Financial terms have not been disclosed.
The 3 Immutable Laws of Retail Innovation
Retailer partners need to 'mind the gap' as the pace of change quickens. Everyone in the retail industry, from the cashier to the CEO, knows that transformation and disruption are changing the way we shop. But too many retail executives are dealing...
Healthcare and Food Align to Benefit the Individual
Health & Wellness Gets Personal: Part 3 The personalized wellness vision aligns managed care organizations, healthcare providers, employers, food manufacturers, and retailers to improve and maintain the wellness of each individual. Powerful...
Personalized Wellness: A Virtual Dietitian
Health & Wellness Gets Personal: Part 2 Healthcare has made valiant efforts to guide consumers to beneficial foods, only to find the information quickly forgotten within hours of leaving the doctor’s office. Understanding nutrition labels on...
Health and Wellness Gets Personal
Technology enabling a new paradigm in which healthcare and food come together. As a nation, we spend over $5 trillion a year to feed our bodies. That’s the value of food sold each year in the United States through retail and foodservice, including...
Many Retailers Are Asking the Wrong Question About Personalized Offers
Instead, they should be focusing on three key areas. Years ago, I remember some retailers boasting that they had no advertising expense. These retailers were charging brands for ad placement and display fees and then applying the funds collected to...
Poor Personalization Will Cost You
Digital Customer Engagement in Supermarket Retail: Part 4 Amazon’s business serves one master: the customer. Everything the company does is focused on securing a growing portion of each customer’s spending across a fast-growing array of product...
Why Customer Experience Is the Defining Digital Battleground
Digital Customer Engagement in Supermarket Retail: Part 3 There is no better example of how a traditional supermarket retailer must change to remain competitive in today’s world than that provided by Kroger. As the grocery industry moves online and...
How Personalization is Reshaping the Shopping Experience
This article by Winsight Grocery Business highlights Coborn's digital shopper engagement powered by Birdzi. Coborn’s is in the vanguard of retailers employing new sophisticated technologies to meld the digital and physical shopping experience....
How Personalization Is Reshaping the Shopping Experience
Digital Customer Engagement in Supermarket Retail: Part 2 Amazon, the nemesis of brick & mortar retailers, is a master at helping shoppers discover relevant products the shopper may be interested in. Amazon leverages a vast amount of knowledge it...
Let’s Get Personal: Digital Customer Engagement in Supermarket Retail
Why retailers’ ability to meld physical and digital worlds is no longer optional. As physical brick-and-mortar shopping melds with the digital world, customer experience is the defining battleground since shoppers can now engage with retailers at...
Is Amazon Planning 2,000 Grocery Stores In The U.S.?
In this article, Retail TouchPoints explores Amazon's reported move into grocery locations. "Leveraging customer data, improving personalization, mobile centricity, and building efficiencies into in-store experiences are the only options for those...
Is Amazon Planning 2,000 Grocery Stores In The U.S.?
retail touchPointsAmazon’s reported jump into small grocery locations may be part of a long-term plan, one that just may test the limits of how far the e-Commerce brand will be able to extend its offerings. Amazon is planning on opening 20 grocery stores in the U.S. by the end of 2018, according to internal documents accessed by Business Insider…
Why retailers should enable households to shop as a team
This article originally appeared on Supermarket News. According to FMI’s “U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2016” report, more households than ever are sharing grocery shopping responsibilities, with 33% of adults saying they share the responsibility or...
Taking Proximity Tech Beyond Promotional Offers
Many retailers have invested the money to install beacons in stores and deliver location-based promotions and offers to shoppers. According to the most recent report from Proxbook, more than 6.2 million beacons have currently been deployed. But...
How To Gain ROI And CX Values From Beacon Strategies
Beacons can help retailers access information about in-store shopper activity and deliver a better customer experience by implementing a layer of e-Commerce-style analytics on their store shelves. The Beacon Strategies also features a County Market...
County Market app driving traffic, loyalty
Niemann Foods’ County Market stores are drawing new consumers and retaining others with its myCountyMarket app that pushes location-based offers to loyalty cardholders’ mobile devices as they shop the store. County Market’s 44 stores are equipped...
County Market app driving traffic, loyalty
SN supermarket newsOur in-store offers that we offer with the beacon technology have a dramatically higher redemption rate than something that we send out of store." — Nathaniel Jones, County Market…
6 Ways Mobile Shopping Apps Are Targeting In-Store Customers
street fightA lack of data isn’t a problem in the digital shopping world, where online retailers regularly use cookies and retargeting to track visitors and generate the types of hyper-personalized recommendations that increase sales. But the offline world is trickier in many ways, and retailers are still exploring how to effectively leverage mobile data to create more targeted in-store marketing campaigns.
Street Culture: Birdzi Finds ‘Liberation’ in Lack of Corporate Hierarchy
It’s rare to catch a startup right in the moments before its popularity gains traction, and that pivotal shift is happening at Birdzi right now. Birdzi (as in a bird’s eye view) is a shopper engagement software company targeting mainly...
Street Culture: Birdzi Finds ‘Liberation’ in Lack of Corporate Hierarchy
street fightIt’s rare to catch a startup right in the moments before its popularity gains traction, and that pivotal shift is happening at Birdzi right now…
Coborn’s, Foodtown Prioritize Personalization As Next Big Loyalty Driver
Many supermarket retailers are turning to personalization to bolster consumer engagement. Regional grocers Coborn’s and New Jersey-based Foodtown have selected the Birdzi platform to leverage personalization tactics both online and in...
Coborn’s, Foodtown Prioritize Personalization As Next Big Loyalty Driver
retail touchPointsMany supermarket retailers are turning to personalization to bolster consumer engagement. Regional grocers Coborn’s and New Jersey-based Foodtown have selected the Birdzi platform to leverage personalization tactics both online and in brick-and-mortar locations…
5 Monetization Strategies for Beacon Vendors
street fightBeacon technology — and the type of customized, personalized marketing it enables — is one of the fastest growing segments of the local industry. As beacons graduate from the “experimental” phase, interest among retailers is expected to explode. In the U.S. alone, in-store retail sales influenced by beacon…
6 Ways Mobile Shopping Apps Are Targeting In-Store Customers
Continuing with offers after consumers move inside. “Birdzi delivers personalized offers via the app and email, including a personalized weekly flyer, to drive shopper traffic. Once shoppers are in-store, they still receive additional personalized...
Talking With: Birdzi CEO Shekar Raman on customer loyalty do’s and don’ts
There are many strategies retailers need to have in play every day, from boosting the customer experience to adopting new technologies to promote the business while saving costs. One of the prime focus points is expanding and improving customer...
Talking With: Birdzi CEO Shekar Raman on customer loyalty do’s and don’ts
retail customer experienceThere are many strategies retailers need to have in play every day, from boosting the customer experience to adopting new technologies to boost the business while saving costs. One of the prime focus points is expanding and improving customer loyalty as the return customer is the best customer a retailer can have.
9 Killer Location Features for Retailer Mobile Apps
Concierge assistance: “In order to receive timely assistance and efficient customer service, allow shoppers to request assistance and advertise their in-store location to store associates, based on their proximity to beacons. An example would be a...
9 Killer Location Features for Retailer Mobile Apps
street fightForty-three percent of consumers have had a retailer’s app on their smartphone for more than a year, but despite that type of loyalty, this category of branded mobile apps still has a long way to go. Retailer apps have a reputation for being bulky and unnecessary, and for taking up space on consumers’ phones without delivering enough benefit…
Millennials a key focus at National Grocers Show
Seamlessly engaging with your customers is at the core of Birdzi's shopper engagement suite. Canadian Grocer features Birdzi in their latest piece on Millenials: "County Market is using Birdzi's platform to deliver personalized offers,...
Millennials a key focus at National Grocers Show
canadian grocerThe annual gathering, which was the largest in NGA history with about 4,000 retailers, wholesalers and industry partners in attendance, featured more than 40 sessions covering nearly every aspect of retailing.
10 Ways Retailers Can Create Awareness of In-Store Mobile Channels
street fightThe notion of how to manage customer service is changing for brick-and-mortar merchants as shoppers increasingly voice their preference for communicating with businesses through their smartphones rather than face-to-face, even while they’re shopping in-store. Fifty-eight percent of shoppers in a Consumer Electronics Association survey said they’d rather look up information on their smartphones while shopping than speak to an employee…
TiE-Boston Launches TiE ScaleUp to Help Startups between Seed and Series A Financing
PRWebOn November 19, 2015, TiE-Boston unveiled 15 companies who make up the inaugural cohort for TiE ScaleUp. TiE ScaleUp, a five month accelerator program, provides startups a path to breakthrough growth through access to investors, mentors and classes/workshops…
County Market wins Mobile Strategies Award
County Market has been chosen to receive a Store Operations Superstar Award from Retail TouchPoints. County Market is receiving a Bronze Award in the category of Mobile Strategies. County Market was nominated for its work with Birdzi. In its...
The Future of Retail – SiliconIndia
"Combining context with personalization is an extremely powerful proposition for retail. In conjunction with mobile, they represent a marketer's dream- the ability to reach a shopper with relevant messaging at the right time and place. There is a...
County Market Turns on Beacons in 44 Stores
Niemann Foods rolled out beacons in its County Market grocery stores following a successful test. The new technology is deployed in all 44 locations. County Market is a division of Niemann Foods and had tested beacons in conjunction with Birdzi, a...
County Market turns on beacons in 44 stores
fierce retailNiemann Foods rolled out beacons in its County Market grocery stores following a successful test. The new technology is now deployed in all 44 locations.
Nicholas Dollar Saver Amps Up Digital Savings
Nichols Dollar Saver is replacing its digital coupons and current in-store app with a single solution. The Checotah, Okla.-based retailer has joined Birdzi’s Personiphi Network, which offers omnichannel personalized savings through Nichols’...
6 Reasons Why Beacon Programs Fail
street fightBeacons have been heralded as the future of retail, with 85% of retailers expected to use the technology by 2016. But getting a successful proximity-marketing program off the ground involves more than just setting out a few digital devices.
Nicholas Dollar Saver Amps Up Digital Savings
progressive grocerNichols Dollar Saver is replacing its digital coupons and current in-store app with a single solution. The Checatoh, Okla.-based retailer has joined Birdzi’s Personiphi Network, which offers omni-channel personalized savings through Nichols’ website, mobile site, mobile app and email.
5 Ways Mobile Is Improving the In-Store Shopping Experience
In this article, Street Fight explores 5 ways mobile is improving the in-store shopping experience. Birdzi harnesses mobile and location-based technology to create a unique and personalized in-store shopping experience. To read more, visit...
5 Ways Mobile Is Improving the In-Store Shopping Experience
street fightHyperlocal technology has the power to revolutionize the in-store shopping experience, but whether those changes ever come to fruition will depend largely on retailer adoption. As a group, retailers still aren’t comfortable harnessing the full power…
Regional grocers light up stores with beacon tests
fierce retailRegional grocery chains Niemann Foods and Woodman’s Markets have rolled out beacons as tests give way to larger implementation.
Grocery And Convenience Store IT News For VARs — January 23, 2014
var insightsIn the news, a study shows monitoring shopping habits and preferences using smartphones could produce valuable data for grocers. Also, top grocery trends for 2014…
New Research Provides Insight into Shopper Behavior in Supermarkets
winsight grocery businessSupermarket operators may soon have a way to monitor how and where customers shop their stores, using aggregated data from the shoppers’ own smartphones…
Birdzi Announces Partnership With Core-apps
In 2013, Birdzi entered into a partnership with Core-apps, the event industry's #1 mobile app provider. This partnership aims to integrate Birdzi's technology into the Core-apps application and implement the solution at a growing number of industry...