Promotions are deeply rooted in Portuguese groceries shopping habits. Price and promotions lead the consumers’ top of mind, at the time of purchase. 76% of customers declare they check promotional brochures, while preparing their shopping list/cart. Our weekly promotional brochure is made up of 1,000+ products, presented over 30+ pages. Our competitors follow the same guidelines.

So, considering there are so many brochures, can consumers find exactly what they are looking for? Or are they missing the best deals? Could we offer something unique, that would allow them to zoom in to the products they like the most?

We wanted to protect customers from FOMO the most relevant promotions for them, feeling lost amongst so many brochures, with hundreds of products. Our aim was to simplify their lives when planning the shopping cart and have a positive impact on their customer journey.

How can we improve the shopping experience, using the information we have from our customer´s purchase history?

Promotions are deeply rooted in Portuguese groceries shopping habits. Price and promotions lead the consumers’ top of mind, at the time of purchase. 76% of customers declare they check promotional brochures, while preparing their shopping list/cart.

Our weekly promotional brochure is made up of 1,000+ products, presented over 30+ pages. Our competitors follow the same guidelines.”

We imagined a new communication format, that delivers a fully customized experience, for every individual customer.

A promotional digital brochure that is personalized. Where our customers find exclusively the best promotions for them, assuring they never miss the promotions on their favorite products. This way, they can pick the best options in their shopping routine, in an effortless, easy way.

To achieve this great level of personalization, it is only possible through the processing of a large volume of transactional information (Big Data), captured with the use of the loyalty card in the purchases (physical and online).

When the customers register in the loyalty program, they provide demographic information, which we also use to segment our clients according to several lifestyle, life-stage criteria, enriching the analytical modelling processes.

In order to identify the best set of offers, the stages of modelling and allocating products to each customer integrates several dimensions such as consumption seasonality, stock, purchase frequency, substitute products and dozens of other variables. In modelling customer behavior and creating an analytical model for product propensity, techniques such as Feature Engineering and Machine Learning were used.

Our target audience is the individual customers that use the loyalty card on their purchases (over 80% of the customer base).

We merged Big Data, AI and ML techniques to build relationship models between each customer and thousands of products. In these models, we integrated several dimensions: consumption seasonality, purchase frequency, substitute products and dozens of other variables.

By modelling millions of shopping behaviors, we created an analytical model for personalized product classification. This model allows us to identify the best products for each customer, in every moment.

The next step was to cross-reference all customers and their individual products list, with image, information, price and discount for each product, and generate a digital brochure.

For each brochure, a unique HTML is generated, consisting of widgets where the product offers are loaded, in a fully automated process, using technologies such as node.js, EJS and MongoDB.

The personalized brochure is displayed in a personal URL, accessible on the computer, mobile or tablet, and in our App.

We did a proof-of-concept involving 1.000 clients. In less than 1 year, we scaled it to 1 million and then to 2.5 million personalized brochures being produced at this moment, every week.

We have brand KPI´s on promotions perception and satisfaction. Our brand signature is "the most profitable way is to come to our stores". The personalized brochure potentiates these objectives, with an average review of 4.4/5 regarding customer satisfaction.

Our customers can access their personalized brochure in our app; for the customers that don´t use the app, we send the personal link to access the personalized brochure, via e-mail or SMS, every week.

The design of the personalized brochure is aligned with the general brochures and in-store communication, which the customers are used to. The UX is coherent with the online store experience, so that customers can easily build their shopping cart.

The initial set-up of the project was just about 3-months long.

In 12 months, personalized brochures generated 27+ Million Euros in incremental sales (sales lift between targeted customers and control group).

Customer interest could not be better. Thousands of customers check their personalized brochure every week, with a satisfaction rate of 4.4/5. We believe we are on the right track to bring the brand closer to the consumers and stand out from the competition.

Groceries shopping will never be the same. Our customers don´t have to browse anymore over multiple brochures with thousands of promotions – the majority of them with no relevance to each specific consumer - and are now able to focus their choices on what makes the most sense for their shopping habits.

We observed that personalized brochures really make an impact on the number of customers visits to the shop and basket value. The result? Customers are concentrating all their groceries shopping in our stores.