FindMine uses artificial intelligence to help brands with content and product curation
Steven Loeb interviews Michelle Bacharach, founder & CEO of FindMine, a company that uses artificial intelligence to help brands with content and product curation.
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Highlights from the interview:
- Consumers aren’t experts in the product categories they’re buying from, so FindMine helps brands that have that expertise bring is to their customers. That means every consumer can be a better version of themselves and be successful with the products that they're buying, while also driving the brand or the retailer's KPIs.
- Brands have a hard time communicating their expertise because they have to do it manually, meaning they have teams of people who are responsible for that, both online and offline. That also means that, once the content is produced, it can't easily be changed. FindMine's technology is running predictive intelligence on the human creative process so that the platform can actually produce content that looks like it was produced by a human.
- The company is democratizing access to style guides. There are services that do that directly to the consumer, like StitchFix, but that's not available to every brand. Brands that have their own point of view, but can't afford to hire 3,000 stylists across the country, use FindMine to recreate that same high touch experience.
- FindMine works with brands including Adidas, Reebok, Perry Ellis, Original Penguin and the Shopping Channel, the Canadian equivalent of HSN or QVC. The Shopping Channel also sells things like vacuum cleaners and vacuum cleaner attachment, where there's no design aesthetic involved but there's still an expertise involved.
- Part of the way the company measures ROI is in terms of repeat purchase, which is a problem for retailers, as a lot of customers buy one time and then never again from that particular brand, for various reasons. FindMine was able to increase repeat purchase for one customer by 4.5 percent in 30 days, and another by 8 percent in two weeks. If you get customers to come back more frequently in a two week period, and that compounds, they're more likely to return again and again, meaning they can be coached to be more full price shoppers over the long run. They will also spend more over a longer period of time.
- FindMine helps its customers compete against Amazon and their product recommendations by leveraging brand expertise, which is their biggest differentiator. There's also more at stake as it's hard to offend people with a bad product recommendation, but if a brand gives someone bad advice, or a bad experience, they can lose that customer forever.
- Amazon could be a potential customer for FindMine as they sell many of the company's brands on their platform already. It could also be an opportunity for Amazon to upsell premium brands, while the brands can bring to bear their point of view without having to staff up extra merchandising teams to program those pages.
- Once COVID ends, there will be a resurgence of brick and mortar as people will want to be outside of the house, and shopping will become a social activity. That means that retailers and brands will have to make the digital experience consistent, whether shoppers are in a physical store or they're shopping online. Customers need to have the same experience, the same ease of use, and the same perception of the brand, no matter where and how they're shopping.
- It's becoming less important to customers where, when and how they shop. They just need a consistent experience, and a great experience, and they need to have some kind of exchange of value beyond a discount. FindMine's technology is what will give brands and retailers the infrastructure to offer those experiences and conversations wherever the customer is.
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Steven Loeb
