Aaron Chase (ECRS) presented at NFCA's Peer Finance Training to share a look at the evolving nature of retail transactions and how member data can be used to drive business, better promote your co-op to bring in new customers, and improve your customers’ experience.

1. Trends in Point of Sale: Maximizing the effectiveness of
your Member Database

2. What are we talking about?
How is retail evolving and what does that mean for you?
And...
Leveraging existing membership data to:
● Improve Customer Experience
● Promote Your Co-op and Boost Membership
● Drive Business
But first...

3. ● To give local and regional
food/beverage retailers a
competitive technology edge,
● To make consumers’ lives easier
● And, In doing both, to create lasting
raving fans around the ECRS brand
Why Does ECRS Exist?
Here’s our commitment: .

4. Consumers are evolving. Retailers must keep up.
● New competitors are using lower
friction transactions to captivate
consumers
● Customers’ buying behavior is
changing
● Consumers want a digital
relationship
● “Business as usual” at the checkout
is no longer enough to stay
competitive

5. ● Too much technical debt
● Best-of-Breed
○ Creates silos of dependency and dysfunction
○ Drives cost up dramatically
○ Makes vendors too dependent on the
customization and consultant model
● Vendor product acquisition rollups
aren’t working
○ Systems are less data driven
○ Systems can’t share transaction logic
Silo Methodologies Can’t Adapt
Company A
POS
Software
Back
Office
Software
Company B
Loyalty
Software
Company D
WebCart
Software
Company C

6. The Road to Unified Commerce

7. ● Outperform and Outmaneuver Competitors with Unified Commerce
○ Exceed customer expectations by placing technology at the forefront of your brand
experience
○ Reduce technical-debt
○ Reduce transaction friction at every point “unified transaction logic”
● Standardize with a Unified Commerce Platform/Eco-System that:
○ Provides access to new functionality and best practices within a shared user
community.
○ Offers an organized web service layer for necessary 3rd party integration.
○ Manages and automates compliance and upgrades.
What’s the Opportunity?

8. Co-ops Have the Advantage
Membership means you already
have customer information on file.
Members are more loyal than
customers.
Members want to spend money in
your Co-op.

9. What You Need
What data should you have?
1. Contact Information (Phone, Email)
2. Address
3. Date of Birth
4. Shopping History
a. Average Visits per Week
b. Average Spend per Visit
c. Last Visit
d. Transaction Logs
What tools should you have?
1. Powerful Reporting/Analytics Tool
2. Consumer Engagement Initiatives
3. Get your Members Excited
a. Outreach and Communication
b. Start a Dialogue
c. Get Them Involved

10. The Right System Will Speed Up Transactions
Make it easier to associate members to
transactions while transactions are in process.
Can your customers “Self Associate?”
Alternate Payment Methods.
Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Samsung Pay, etc.
Tokenization.

11. Secure One Touch

12. Maintaining Customer Experience
Can you offer your members your user
experience across multiple touch points?
1. Traditional Point of Sale
2. Online
3. Kiosk
4. Mobile Point of Sale
5. Smart Phone
Silo Methodology makes this difficult.
“Integration” can be messy, and limiting.
Silo Methodology can make it hard to promote
your brand - Are your online customers seeing
your brand, or your 3rd Party Online Solution’s?
E-Commerce
Kiosk
Traditional Point of Sale
Mobile Point of Sale
Smartphone App

13. E-Commerce - Food for Thought
Who’s brand do your online shoppers see?
Can you offer the same pricing online as you do
in your store?
Is the data “Real Time?”
Does it require repetitive data entry?
Can you offer all your in store incentives (punch
cards, etc.) online?
Can you offer smartphone integration?
Can you easily report on, and analyze a
shopper’s online, and in-store transactions
together?

14. Promoting Your Co-op
Outreach allows you to build dialogue with your
members:
1. Newsletters
2. Questionnaires
3. Special Offers
Encourages joint promotion of initiatives and
community.
Can offer incentives - “Thanks for sharing on
Facebook, enjoy a free…”

15. LoyaltyBot
Automated loyalty marketing
● Targeted segments by spending level
● Targeted segments by club
● Targeted inactive shoppers/lost customer
● In-store and online customer loyalty boarding
● Group/family accounts
● “You Saved” and “You Saved This Year” receipt printing
BuzzBot
Automatically rewards customers when they share store’s
events with friends via their own social media connections.

16. Putting Mobility to Good Use
Mobility allows you to take your business
outside the confines of your building.
1. Community Events
2. Outdoor Markets
3. Pop Up Cafes
4. Catering Delivery
But… Can you bring the same in-store
experience with you?

17. Mobile POS

18. Knowing Your Data is About Customer Service
Knowing what your shoppers want as a group,
and as individuals, means you know what to
keep in stock.
Insight Required! It’s not just about velocity. It’s
about the basket.
Data allows for targeted, relevant marketing.
Molasses.

19. Basket Lift
What is it? And how does it work?

20. Traditional Loyalty vs. Basket Lift
Traditional Loyalty Programs - Loyalty Points -
Put money in your consumer’s pockets.
May engender loyalty, but can also cost the
retailer money.
Basket Lift offers the best of both worlds.
Incentivises Loyalty, and…
Boosts Profit by increasing average basket size.

21. What’s Involved?
Relevant Coupons for All Spending Tiers.
Time Constraint - How long will the
promotion run?
Automated Digital Delivery.
> $80 = $10 off $100
Average
Transaction > $60 = $8 Off $80
Size
> $40 = $6 Off $60
> $25 = $5 Off $40
> $15 = $3 Off $25
> $0.01 = $2 Off $15

22. What’s the Challenge?
Correctly identifying customers based on
average spend per visit rather than average
spend over time period.
Customer 1:
Shops once a week, spends $60 on average.
Offering $8 off on $80 spent is a moderate
increase.
Customer 2:
Shops three times a week, spend $20 on
average.
Offering $8 off on $80 is too large to be
appealing.

23. How can we do it?
Putting it together
1. Run reports at each store
2. Export to excel
3. Import to custom filemaker
database
4. Assign coupons
5. Sort by customer ID &
coupon rank
6. Delete duplicate records
7. Export back to excel
8. Import into System
9. Flag in System
10. Create Promotions
11. Create Coupons & Link to
Promotions
12. Sync Email Contacts
13. Create Email Templates
14. Assign Customers to
Appropriate Campaign
15. Review and Send
1. Export all Loyalty
transactions over 2
weeks
2. Import data into custom
database
3. Flag required data fields
4. Delete unnecessary
fields
5. Isolate transactions with
digital coupons
6. Export data to Excel
7. Summarize with a pivot
table
Analyzing Results

24. What does it get us?
The Results Key Points:
Sales Increase:
● $50,000
● 37%
Gross Profit:
● $15,000
Net Profit:
● $4,500
Coupons Sent ~6,000
Email Open Rate 43% Emails Opened / Sent
Redemptions ~2,000
Redemption Rate 33% Coupons Redeemed / Sent
Sales Lift ~$50,000 Redemptions * (Avg Spend -
Prior)
Percent Lift 37% Sales Lift / Total Sales
Lift in Gross Profit ~$15,000 Sales Lift * Margin (30%)
Net Gain ~$4,500 Gross Profit Lift - Coupon Cost

25. Making Life Easy
Set it and forget it!
Benefits of Integrated Loyalty:
1. Reduces Steps Involved
2. Costs significantly less
3. Unified vs. “Integrated”
4. Real Time vs. Delayed

26. Thank You