Expansion can be difficult for businesses with a small footprint, especially when that footprint begins in the packed confines of New York City. But one juice bar, Pure Green, is gathering consumer data via artificial intelligence, to map growth outside of its four present locations: three in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn.
With the help of Genie, an AI-powered recommendation engine from Grey Jean Technologies, Pure Green can gather and analyze transaction and consumer data from its current stores to determine the best areas to set up new retail locations. Thus far, Pure Green already expects to open two more Manhattan stops in the near future — one in the East Village and another in Tribeca — with the ambitious goal of opening 30 locations by the end of 2017.
Although the brand exclusively operates in New York, Pure Green plans on using Genie to help expand beyond the Big Apple’s borders, perhaps into new cities. Pure Green already sells its products in various other businesses, including select locations of fitness center New York Sports Club, which may serve to help raise the brand’s profile.
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“NYSC’s parent company, Town Sports International, wants us to go into their other markets including Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Boston, and into their signature clubs in those cities,” said Ross Franklin, CEO of Pure Green. “With Genie, we’re looking for advice into which city we should be going into next. As we continue to grow in New York, we’re going to get better information to help us predict that next move.”
Genie’s ability to predict consumer behavior has been demonstrated in early pilots for various brands. The platform has a:
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72% accuracy rate predicting the next likely purchase within a category;
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48% accuracy rate predicting the next likely purchase down to the product SKU level; and
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25% accuracy rate predicting the next likely purchase with newly released products.
Data Analysis Assists Loyalty Program Formation
The Genie engine predicts consumer purchase behavior based on more than 500 different data attributes, including consumer transaction history, demographics, location, time, social media activity, preferences and behavior. The predictions even play into how Pure Green structures its loyalty program.
“Our retail operation is growing rapidly,” Franklin said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “We’re looking at building a solid infrastructure. We’ve looked into a lot of loyalty programs out there and found that it’s very cookie-cutter and not really based on any metrics. Look at the history of loyalty programs, starting with punch cards where you buy 10 smoothies and get one free. Given how many products we offer, how would we really know that a smoothie is going to be the best item for a loyalty program? When we’re looking at demographics to expand, we see so many opportunities out there and we have so much data from our current consumers, so we’re focusing on identifying untapped areas to go next.”
The partnership with Grey Jean goes beyond discovering the locations for future Pure Green stores. With Genie, Pure Green also will assess which products are best sellers, and determine what they should create more of based on individual customer preferences, as well as which smoothies and juices should be featured in specific locations. The platform even analyzes Pure Green’s social media followers, to collect data on where fans and potential shoppers are concentrated and what products are resonating with them.
“If you come to Pure Green every day and get the same Blue Royale smoothie, how amazing would it be if the AI Genie generated an email and it went to a loyal customer thanking them for getting the smoothie?” Franklin said. “‘Your next smoothie is on the house, just show this to the cashier.’ It’s such a native experience that it recognizes what they’re getting on a regular basis and sets a new threshold where the customer deserves the next one free. I look at this as the next generation in loyalty for the quick service market.”
