Conversations are amazing no matter how they come about, and especially when they are unexpectedly linked. I recently visited PDI Connections, the community website hosted by PDI, back-office software partner to many convenience-store retailers, and found a lively dialogue about mobile coupons. Ray Yantosh, merchandising support manager for Sunoco, started it off by writing that he is looking for some structure and uniformity for couponing, especially given the increasing focus on mobile manufacturer and proprietary couponing across several different POS systems. Other retailers added to the mobile-coupon challenge by posting, “It is a pain sometimes,” “It depends on the software version,” “Wondering if anyone knew how they handle …” and many similar messages reflecting the need for guidance and best practices.
Within days of reading the posts, I was in a number of different meetings with other industry technology providers and, lo and behold, our conversations brought them to expressing their own points of view on mobile coupons.
Then I found myself in an email conversation that prompted me to learn about the Conexxus Loyalty Working Group, which is focused on these mobile-coupon challenges I kept hearing and reading about. (Conexxus is a member-driven technology organization dedicated to the development and implementation of standards, technologies innovation and advocacy for the c-store and petroleum market.) “A highly engaged group of subject-matter experts from across the industry are pursuing a solution that will apply to our industry,” said Linda Toth, standards manager for Conexxus, in the email.
Verifone’s Brian Russell, who is leading the Conexxus working group, uses the term “digital offers” to more broadly represent the many different promotion options available within mobile and loyalty systems. Although their “effort is still in the very early stages, there seems to be a lot of interest in our efforts from consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, merchants and vendors,” who are all represented in the group, he said.
Mobile coupons’ power to drive sales lifts is being seen at c-stores every day. Jason Lobel, founder and CEO of SwiftIQ, a cloud platform that unifies data, applies adaptive intelligence and enables real-time decisions to master deep analytics, shared a recent case study based on several Koupon Media digital offers through Kum & Go. Using the power behind
SwiftIQ’s engine, the study found that six different offers generated product sales increases of 12% on average; on a 12-pack soda offer, sales grew by as much as 24%.
To measure the effectiveness of promotions such as these, Lobel believes retailers need to keep in mind that “emphasizing clean, accurate data integrity is a necessary foundation for analytics.” Lobel shared some of his best-practice thoughts: “Leading retailers are enriching their core data with additional context in product catalogs (e.g., container size, package), store locations (e.g., area demographic) and basket (e.g., mission type). The more robust your data is, the easier companies will find it to create more relevant shopping experiences with localized merchandise and personalization.”
A Focus on Collaboration
Leveraging his company’s vast network of users to pass along CPG-sponsored mobile coupons to retailers brought GasBuddy/OpenStore’s Tony Chidiac, vice president of retail, into the discussion. “With all parties coming together—the CPGs, distribution channels and retailers—the opportunity for couponing in the new age is endless. It’s now [about] finding the most effective and efficient process for coupon clearing that works for everyone. ... The industry as a whole will benefit greatly by working together to find the best automated and feasible solution for everyone,” Chidiac told me recently.
Offering its own best practices for mobile coupons, PDI has outlined a process centered on using mix-and-match functionality in the POS system to apply the coupon discount.
One reason for this approach, said Austin Skaggs, vice president of marketing, is that it should resolve automation and security concerns “for the most part, because it restricts clerks from incorrectly using the coupon. … Plus, you can use PDI/Rebate Manager to automatically reconcile rebate payments with coupon activity.”
Retailers such as Donna Perkins, E-Z Stop Foodmarts’ pricebook manager, are carrying the conversation forward by thinking through the life cycle of a mobile coupon. “Polling the value of coupons redeemed” and having an identifier to use in the reconciliation process will be needed, she said.
The good news is that true collaboration on digital offers is at work. Brad van Otterloo, vice president of sales and marketing for Koupon Media, said the attention c-store retailers are paying to the digital offers gives the industry “the opportunity to be lightyears ahead of grocery” despite how complicated the process can be. Koupon Media has been learning from retailers and he’s sharing that knowledge with the Conexxus Loyalty Working Group, which will continue to develop a standard for stakeholders.
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