Invigor kicks off China Insights trial for self-service convenience stores

Invigor Group’s (ASX:IVO) Shopper Insights solution will soon be trialled in Guangzhou, China at EasyGo convenience stores — self-serve, staff-less stores that use WeChat Pay, similar to Amazon Go in North America.

Further to that, IVO has confirmed that during the past eight months, two groups in Australia — a national retailer and a major shopping centre group, both of which are household names — have successfully completed trials of Shopper Insights prior to revenue-generating deployments.

IVO itself is a B2B data intelligence and solutions company that turns data analytics into dollars for the retail and service industries. Its innovation in owned retail platforms and unique cross-channel data ecosystem gives businesses a holistic view of their customers and competitive landscape, enabling them to not only understand but also effectively engage with consumers.

Playing a central role in this is Shopper Insights, which provides unprecedented data on consumers and their habits, giving retailers and brands deep insights into their most valued customers, driving more personalised forms of engagement. This enables them to better influence and reward shoppers, thus increasing long-term loyalty.

Leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms, Shopper Insights also assesses the impact of marketing, merchandising, merchant acquisition and promotional initiatives, making recommendations on how these can be improved and enhanced.

Invigor CEO, Gary Cohen, said: “Our partnership with Winning Group and WeChat Pay continues to strengthen and this trial in Guangzhou gives us a toehold into China, which could have huge potential. This is a major opportunity in a large population centre and extends our partnership into one of the world’s largest retail markets.

“Shopper Insights is a key component of the Loyalty solution that we will roll out through the WeChat pay opportunities that we are pursuing in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.

“Closer to home, the trials just completed with two very recognised household names present us with further growth opportunities in the Australian market for this solution, which has significant untapped potential for this type of technology.”

Cohen added that further updates on IVO's progress in Australia and Asia are pending as the company locks in more annualised recurring revenue streams from its core operations.

This latest development follows on from the expansion of IVO’s collaboration with Winning Group last month, which sees IVO integrating its Loyalty solution in the WeChat platform for South-East Asian and Japanese markets.

The small cap also recently extended its partnership with Microsoft. This gives IVO a global sales platform and network for which to promote and sell its Loyalty and Pricing solutions.