What can Romanian Supermarkets do in order to improve the Customer Experience? Recommendation Systems in Creating Personalized Offers

Modern food retail stores have started to penetrate the Romanian market over 20 years ago and since then they have gained more than half of the total market share. More than 10 international brands have opened over 2500 stores creating a competitive environment where each company needs to develop new business strategies in order to achieve positive financial results. In order to gain new clients supermarkets are opening new stores every year, but in order to keep their actual clients they need to improve the customer experience. Introducing fidelity cards, loyalty points, instant awards, tasting sessions or moving in the online area are some of the actions taken by supermarkets in Romania, but none of them have yet developed a recommendation system that can propose personalized offers. This article describes a hybrid algorithmic model based on data mining and collaborative filtering techniques. The goal of the model is to recommend date specific products, similar products and cross-shopping cart products that fulfill the custom needs of each consumer. So at the end of the shopping session each client will receive an offer that includes specific products and customized discounts to his buying behavior. As already sustained by other markets, personalized offers will improve the customer experience and will increase the sales of supermarkets.