As the news likes to portray retail as in a state of Apocalypse- I would disagree and want to give more air time to the growth that is happening. Multiple retailers announced this quarter was their best in a decade- with Best Buy leading the charge. The reason Best Buy cited for the great earnings is a return to focusing their workers on giving personalized service to the shoppers in store. This is getting easier to do as more tools roll out for retailers. One of the best solutions I have seen in this space is the software platform from Amperity. What is unique about their solution is that it is an intelligent customer data platform that builds deeper knowledge about the consumer over time. It is critical to get personalization correct- as an Accenture survey found that 40% of consumers will move away from a web site and buy from a competitor due to poor personalization. Amperity’s team takes data sources on consumers from the retailer and ingests the data into their platform. They clean the data and ensure data quality as a part of the onboarding process. They can then recommend better proactive suggestions. Think of this as an airline recommending to you low fares from your home city instead of a random city sample. By using their platform a retailer can hyper segment the customer base and tailor marketing and promotions to those more accurate segments. In a case study with one retailer they went from 3-4 coarse segments to 47 micro segments. Overall this retailer saw 13% revenue increase across all segments and a 546% increase in a high focus segment that was targeted with specific marketing. This is driving value to both the consumer AND the retailer- a win win combination.