We’re back with another podcast from the NRF 2020 conference. This episode, we’re joined by special guests Tom Furphy from Replenium and Consumer Equity Partners and Kevin Coupe, The Content Guy at morningnewsbeat.com! We focus on the importance of retailers taking a customer-centric approach to grocery eCommerce to compete with - and survive against- retail giants like Amazon.

When the conversation turns to the threat of a recession, Kevin suggests, “Maybe the key is retailers that are going to survive are going to be the ones who are not thinking transactionally. They’re thinking about relationships, thinking about margin.”

Tom agrees, adding that the customer-centric approach was a major strategy at both Wegman’s and Amazon, where he worked in the past.

“When you really do focus on the customer…you can rationalize the experience then from there and it’s so logical…Do you really want to force the customer to walk up and down a bunch of aisles, or if you’re shopping online to go through their past purchases or search and browse everywhere, and spend all that time, for these things that they know they’re going to get?…Don’t ask the customer to spend that time. Take that 15-20 minutes that they save, and show them some new products for discovery.”

Kevin, Tom, Sylvain and Mark go on to discuss how technology can empower them to really connect with shoppers through replenishment and personalization.

Tom explains, “A lot of the technology solutions today, they’re less expensive than the old enterprise world…the technology delivers a better customer experience and it delivers a ton of monetization throughout it as well. And it’s not monetization such that it detracts from the customer experience, it can actually improve the customer experience.”

Listen to the full podcast now to hear more insights about the industry and how retailers can benefit from a customer-centric approach to grocery eCommerce.