Everyone talks about how to do what Amazon can’t, whilst forgetting that Amazon is busy behind their backs stealing customers. The fact is, Amazon probably knows more about your customers than you do; and if you think that’s not correct, just consider how much of its business is generated from recommendations. Who can match that? Does Amazon really own the blueprint for scale?

The answer, for those retailers who think there may be an answer as opposed to those that have given up, is to recognise that the data they currently have may hold the answer. This has spawned a generation of tech vendors that are helping retailers to analyse data for actionable insights, many of which are struggling with customers who often have multiple and disintegrated data sets, and are a long way from having a data lake.

Everything is connected

But there appears to be another answer, and one that is compelling in the context of facing up to Amazon. Founder and CEO of Shopin, Eran Eyal, explains, “We are helping retailers and brands to recognise that Amazon does not have the monopoly advantage when it comes to getting value from data. We source purchase data that is readily and publicly available, enhance it using visual AI to make it both granular and accessible, and apply Blockchain to make it communicable and actionable.”

Shopin’s RIDE solution reveals the unseen relationships between retailers, data and products, so that brands and retailers can start to forecast which products are likely to be bought with other products that, crucially, they have in stock. It’s called brand co-occurrence and this insight can be used to drive core retail and brand activities – design, assortment and allocation, promotion, pricing, personalisation and recommendations.

And it goes deeper than that; RIDE can see where there is either halo effect or cannibalisation on brands, channels and shopper demographics. It also enables brands and retailers to understand the real value to them of critical path products; if these products are unavailable, then the customer will not buy related products.

A new model for retail

Combining charm, modesty and ruthless ambition, Eyal talks about nothing less than a new model for retail. “Our mission at Shopin is to create a Federation of retailers in a purposeful, safe data cooperative, and provide an ecosystem which nurtures and encourages growth for the retail industry.”

He talks about the value to retailers and brands; “Blockchain will enable better supply chain management across the entire product life-cycle and that’s about lower costs and higher margin for brands and retailers; and for their customers, it’s about giving them control of their own data so they can get the exact experience they are seeking.”

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