| 7/14/2009 |
Nikki Baird |
| The New You: Electronic Shopping Records |
I had a conversation last week with a vendor in the promotions space, located in the UK. He asked me about something I had never heard of before: Vendor Relationship Management. I immediately thought of Supplier Relationship Management, or what has really evolved into B2B portals and eCommerce. But no, this is different: just as brands have customer relationship management, VRM is the reverse, enabling customers to manage and control the relationships that they have with brands - the “vendors” in VRM.
The implications of this seem profound, and would demand a complete shift in how we, as an industry, think about customer data. In the past, RSR has talked about the poor situation loyalty has found itself in, by devolving to a straight pay-for-customer-data scheme. Doesn't an Electronic Shopping Record turn that into an even more explicit equation (albeit with the customer holding the power)? "In order to receive this 25% off coupon you must give me permission to access your ESR?" I'm not sure that I like that kind of future - either as a consumer or as a retailer.
What do you think?
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| keywords: retail, IT, technology, vendor relationship managment, customer data |
