Established Retailers vs. Digital Natives

Framed in this way, the challenge for traditional retailers is this: can the likes of Walmart, Coles and Woolworths master these new digital skills faster than the digital natives can learn to become effective store retailers? When Eagle Eye CEO, Tim Mason, recently posed that question to audiences in Australia and New Zealand, the majority backed Amazon to win. At Eagle Eye, we’re not so sure, probably because many of us were previously store retailers and know how tough it is to build a successful proposition in categories like meat, produce and bakery. Amazon’s ten-year struggles with AmazonFresh (before it acquired Whole Foods) illustrate the difficulty of mastering store retail, even for well-funded digital players.

Eagle Eye is an exciting place to be right now because it has world-leading technology that helps store retailers compete on a level playing field with the likes of Amazon. The platform enables a digital connection to every customer walking into the store. It’s something Eagle Eye’s founder, Steve Rothwell, describes as a “cookie for the real world”. The e-commerce pure-plays take a digital connection with every customer for granted. In fact, in Amazon’s grocery format, Amazon Go, it is a condition of entry that customers shop using its App. In comparison, many retailers with stores may not even know the names of their most loyal customers.

So exciting times ahead for retail and Eagle Eye. We’re already a strategic digital partner for the likes of Diageo, John Lewis, Loblaw, Marks & Spencer, Mitchells and Butlers, PizzaExpress, Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

Any forward-thinking retailers in Australia and New Zealand interested to learn more can contact me at jonathan.reeve@eagleeye.com