Knowers of secrets

Mitch Barns, president-CEO of Nielsen told German daily Die Welt that in his view online retailers aren’t retailers any more but marketing and advertising platforms. Mr Barns spoke about how shoppers can be online all the time using their mobile devices. He reckons that digital technology makes it possible to locate customers precisely, therefore they can be targeted with customised offers. The CEO opines that the next big change in German retail won’t happen because households have more money to spend, but due to the conquest of e-commerce. He thinks that e-commerce platforms such as Amazon or Alibaba have a tremendous amount of personal data in digital format. They know what people purchased in the past and they also monitor what they are searching for on websites. Thanks to this they are now becoming marketing and advertising platforms. Mitch Barns believes that traditional retailers will survive, because consumer goods manufacturers will be fighting for every inch of shelf space in physical stores, as digital stores will be unable to expand any more. However, the president didn’t reveal how traditional retailers would be able to increase shelf space in traditional shops.