Data-driven Aisles — PepsiCo’s Blueprint for Anticipating Shopper Needs

  • February 7, 2025
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A leader in the global consumer goods industry PepsiCo continues to innovate in how it engages with customers across both digital and physical channels. In this second part of a two-part interview series, Ellen Webb, Vice President of Shopper Analytics & Insights at PepsiCo, discusses how the company uses data analytics to optimize the shopping experience, ensuring it meets the evolving expectations of today’s consumers.

Speaking with Todd Foley, Chief Digital Officer and CISO at Lydonia, Webb delves into PepsiCo’s strategy of blending physical and digital experiences to create seamless, “phygital” interactions.

A central focus of the discussion is the integration of three key principles — autonomous  convenience, precision loyalty, and anticipatory assortment. These elements help PepsiCo predict consumer needs, foster brand loyalty, and simplify the shopping journey, offering a model for companies aiming to align their strategies with customer expectations.

Webb also emphasizes how PepsiCo balances convenience with product variety, using data to make decisions that improve both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Her insights in the Q&A session provide valuable guidance for organizations looking to enhance their own data-driven retail strategies.

Edited Excerpts:

 

Q How do you leverage data analytics to optimize customer interactions across multiple channels, seamlessly blending physical and digital experiences? What principles guide your approach, and what recommendations would you offer to others tackling this challenge?

A The first key factor is convenience, which is always top of mind for shoppers. However, we see an evolution in this concept, moving toward what we call “autonomous convenience.” It’s not just about ease and speed anymore; it’s about offloading the mental labor of shopping. For example, shoppers shouldn’t have to worry about creating lists or searching for what they need — everything should be easily accessible in one place, regardless of the shopping format. This kind of flexibility will be essential to winning with shoppers in the future, and the “phygital” concept plays a significant role in enabling that.

The second factor is loyalty. Shoppers want to feel valued and understood. They expect their retailers to show appreciation for their loyalty. This can come to life through personalized experiences, such as tailored product recommendations, relevant offers, and promotions. We call this “precision loyalty” — recognizing that shoppers are choosing your store and your brands and ensuring they feel rewarded for that choice.

The third critical piece is assortment. So much of success hinges on the products you offer at the point of purchase. Assortment is complex because it needs to cater to a wide range of interconnected needs. We focus on “anticipatory assortment,” meaning the ability to predict what shoppers are looking for when they enter the store. Do you have products that align with wellness goals, affordability, or even the desire for fun and enjoyment? These factors depend on understanding the specific mindset of the shopper in the moment.

The three elements are foundational to meeting shoppers’ expectations. Technology plays a crucial role in enabling each of these areas, extending their impact into both digital and physical store environments.

Q How do you balance the promise of autonomous convenience — where the experience requires minimal thought — while also offering a wide assortment of choices that cater to diverse preferences without overwhelming the customer?

A

Research shows that too much choice can actually feel limiting because it becomes overwhelming. Our goal is to curate the right assortment that addresses the majority of shopper needs. It’s about striking that balance — offering everything people want, but ensuring it’s the right things.

Another important factor is balancing shopper needs with the operational realities of fulfilling them. For example, we’ve partnered with retailers to optimize their assortments and store layouts based on shopper behavior and demand specific to each location.

Of course, this sometimes requires making tough decisions about what stays and what goes, but there’s a great deal of science and analytics involved in guiding those choices.

Q You’re closely engaged with the business and retailers, playing a direct role in driving insight and influencing the business. Have you had any surprises? Could you share examples where phygital approaches have made an impact at PepsiCo?

A

Our category management and sales strategy teams are critical partners in delivering business impact, and our analytics team has played a significant role in those conversations. A specific example involves a retail partner with diverse shopper needs — think of a convenience and gas store with thousands of locations. Even within the same zip code, two stores less than a mile apart can have very different shopper bases and demand profiles.

To address this, we focus on balancing anticipatory assortment with operational practicality. For instance, we avoid creating hundreds of thousands of unique planograms, instead tailoring strategies that align with shopper needs while being feasible to execute. Our goal is to help our partners grow dollar share in the market through an advantage category strategy and planogram approach that drives sales, profit, and market share while keeping the shopper central.

We leveraged our proprietary Store DNA solution, which combines data from over 500,000 retail stores to create detailed store profiles. By analyzing shopper behavior inside and outside the stores, we identified patterns and segmented locations into clusters based on demand and shopper dynamics.

For this project, we determined four clusters: one focused on healthier items, one on functional beverages, another on flavors, and a core mainstream beverages cluster. The results were striking. In 2023, single-serve beverage sales grew about 9% in clustered stores, compared to 6% in non-clustered stores, and these trends have continued into 2024.

Q Given your measurable impact on the business, does that increase engagement and lead to more requests for your involvement?

A

We tailor solutions to our customers’ unique needs, often through a test-and-learn approach. Sometimes things don’t work out, and we go through a postmortem to identify what went wrong and how to move forward. It’s about learning together, agreeing on the right approach, and testing it thoroughly.

We gather proof points to show we’re not just guessing — our methods are backed by evidence. Importantly, we work closely with our retailer partners to align on strategies, ensuring credibility and collaboration.

This process makes us better because it pushes us to be thoughtful and honest about both opportunities and potential challenges.

Q You’ve created a unique value proposition with your strong business engagement and responsibility for driving impact. How do you prioritize and manage the requests that come your way?

A

Even with unlimited resources, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Prioritization is key for us, and a big focus is on automating processes like data engineering, cleansing, and management. By offloading these tasks, we free up time and energy for value-driving activities.

Trade-offs are a daily reality. Many people find analytics intimidating, so we aim to make it approachable and easy to understand. Our goal is to empower others to make analytics-driven decisions that impact the business. While we don’t own every aspect, we have a dedicated team taking these capabilities to customers, which is a key part of our design.

Q Self-service data has been around for a while. How do you approach that democratization of analytics at PepsiCo?

A

We rely on partners to help us achieve this. It’s not just about trusting the analytics — it’s about making them approachable. The goal is to design user interfaces so intuitive that people don’t even realize they’re engaging with analytics. When someone explores a dashboard or visualization and thinks, “This is amazing—I can’t wait to share it with my customer,” that’s when we know we’ve succeeded.

The user experience is key. I haven’t talked about how many petabytes of data we have because that’s not what matters. What matters is what we’re doing with it. Our partnerships with the digital transformation team, for instance, ensure that analytics tools seamlessly reach the frontline. People may not realize these tools are powered by complex models, but they see actionable insights right at their fingertips.

It’s about democratization, making analytics approachable, and demonstrating their value. We curate data thoughtfully — not giving everyone access to everything — but providing what’s most relevant in a way that feels natural. When analytics become a part of how people work, rather than something imposed on them.

Q Before we finish, do you have any advice for others in similar roles, especially those who haven’t yet reached the level of evolution that PepsiCo has? Any key lessons you’ve learned that you’d like to share?

A

1. Listen to your business partners and focus on driving immediate impacts to build trust. Be empathetic—understand what truly matters to the person you’re engaging with and ensure you’re addressing their priorities.

2. Approach collaboration with humility. Acknowledge what you don’t know and clearly articulate the value you can bring to the conversation. Success relies on cross-functional partners, whether in category management, sales, or strategy—it takes a village to achieve meaningful outcomes.

3. Prioritize effectively. Choose one or two key initiatives and execute them well. Trying to tackle too many things often leads to failure.

4. Be patient. Building trust and seeing the full impact of your efforts takes time, but once things pick up, it’s really exciting to see the impact of the work, which is very fulfilling.

CDO Magazine appreciates Ellen Webb for sharing her insights with our global community.

 

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