Vancouver-based Fobi AI is making it easy for operators to keep pace with consumer demands and future-proof their businesses through digital transformation.

Many retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) businesses want to connect, enhance, and mobilize their existing, often antiquated, infrastructure through artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and analytics. But most of them don’t know where to start. With over five years as a market leader in automation and mobile wallet technology, Vancouver-based Fobi AI has the know-how and does all the heavy lifting so that companies can focus on what matters most: their business.With the competition tightening on customer acquisition, you might want to join the herd and fight for scraps. But, here are just a few reasons third-party data can be more harmful to your bottom line and your customer loyalty and how first-party data collection is the way of the future.

Smart Data in Motion

Fobi has proven experience globally and is working with Canadian companies to change the way they do business. With headquarters in five countries and international operations spanning over 150 nations, Fobi’s dynamic solutions are far-reaching, delivering real-time applications, data-driven insights, and personalized engagement across several global retail use cases, including digital loyalty and membership, coupons, digital ticketing, retail giveaways, and digital age and ID verification.

“Retailers don’t need more data—they need ways to unlock, leverage, and monetize their data,” says Rob Anson, CEO and Chairman at Fobi AI. “We can take an organization’s data, including its operations and customer interactions, ingest it, and with the click of a button, create value with all that data through AI.”

For most companies, data is cumbersome, expensive to manage, and often challenging to make sense of. Machine learning automates the manual steps that people would normally have to do to complete extensive data analysis to inform their business decisions. The secret sauce for Fobi is its powerful Fobi Data Exchange (FDX), a unified insights platform that automates the ingestion, aggregation, and monetization of point-of-sale data in real-time. These actionable insights help businesses make smarter, more optimized decisions and develop more targeted, personalized marketing campaigns.

AI for All

Complex data is connected and combined from multiple disparate sources, such as point-of-sale, online, offline, and third-party transaction systems, to which the Fobi Data Exchange can then provide real-time analytics and insights that unlock powerful retailer-to-customer interactions. Segmented on an overall business level or for each store, retailers can visualize these analytics in a customizable dashboard and subsequently build forecasting and predictive models through machine learning algorithms.

This transformational technology isn’t just for the e-commerce giants. Fobi is levelling the playing field by giving brick-and-mortar shops access to the same tools and competitive advantage. Businesses of all sizes can now use AI and automation to make data-driven decisions that deliver integrated, omnichannel shopping experiences for customers everywhere.

“People don’t fear AI for what it is. They’re often afraid of change,” says Anson. “But when businesses see what we can do and realize our solutions are plug-and-play, they can appreciate the value of AI and the results that it brings to the table.”

Driving Decisions and Revenue 

Many companies, big and small, don’t know how to leverage their data. But businesses are realizing that by utilizing AI and leveraging it to their advantage, they can unlock even more opportunities to create added value with their data. Being able to effectively segment, action, and monetize data through the wallet pass means that retailers can now deliver personalized shopping experiences at the consumer level, ultimately leading to increased recency, frequency, and wallet share.

“Retailers can connect new promotions based on insights from past purchase behaviour, which is one of the most important indicators for retailers to predict and influence future customer behaviour,” says Anson. “This leads to more tailored and targeted loyalty and membership programs. And the same aggregated data and insights can be anonymized and resold to large third-party data aggregators which opens up a brand new revenue stream.”

Personalization and convenience are everything for consumers today, and this puts pressure on retailers to understand their customers’ wants and needs. But currently, there’s little awareness of the full customer journey—what customers bought in the past, how they redeem promotions, and how much they spend.

Anson uses a professional sports team as an example. What does the team know about a season ticket holder? Aside from their contact information, today, customer lifetime value (CLV) in the sports and entertainment industry is largely based on how long fans have had their tickets, how much they’ve spent for those seats, and the value of those seats over time. But what if the team actively had real-time insight into the person’s food and beverage preferences and spend, merchandise purchases, or how they travel to games?

Through AI and automation, Fobi delivers the interoperability to unify data across the team’s disparate systems, such as parking, tickets, merchandise, food and beverage, and more, to get a better understanding of fans at a transactional level. As a result, these insights can help businesses drive enhanced customer engagement by sending hyper-personalized offers and recommendations that are more likely to resonate and convert at the till. Personalization is also proven to drive increased visits, sales, and brand affinity with better targeted marketing campaigns and more cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.

"Society has already embraced digital technology. Consumers are now demanding the same for their retail experiences."

One-tap Vision

Fobi uses app-less wallet pass technology that brings integrated mobile experiences right into the palms of retail customers. It delivers direct-to-consumer engagement and communication through the lock screen, enabling segmented and real-time SMS/push notifications. AI introduces significant opportunities for increased momentum and utilization of mobile wallet passes and payments. “Our system is enabling one scan for ID verification, payment, and loyalty,” says Anson. “It streamlines the customer experience, opens a new, direct channel for personalization and communication, and enables retailers to make data-driven decisions.”

In addition, Fobi’s AI forecasting tools are helping businesses achieve digital sustainability and carbon neutrality by minimizing product inventory in-store and removing legacy, physical on-premise infrastructure. Digitally transforming businesses and the way they engage today’s mobile-first customers eliminates the need for paper (coupons, tickets, giveaways) and reduces unnecessary plastic waste, such as traditional loyalty and membership cards.

“We make it easy for retailers to transform the way they measure and attribute customer engagement, and provide them with a future-proof investment that drives ROI for their marketing campaigns,” he says. “Society has already embraced digital technology — in our homes, at work, and in our cars. Consumers are demanding the same for their retail experiences. As the world continues to test how far digitalization can really go, Fobi is already raising the bar for innovation, providing the next evolution of retail through automation and AI.”

Click here to find out how Fobi can help you digitally transform your retail business.