FairPrice Group extends AI personalisation into grocery aisles

Smart carts can deliver vouchers based on past purchases.

FairPrice Group is extending AI-powered personalisation beyond its digital channels and into its physical stores as it works to deliver more targeted promotions and recommendations to shoppers, according to Karen Chan, chief customer and marketing officer at FairPrice Group.

“Majority of our sales are coming from our brick and mortar stores,” she told Retail Asia Summit 2026 in Singapore. “We need to go and start democratising our touch points so that when customers are actually at the moment of purchase, they would still be able to go and receive a personalised voucher just for them.”

The retailer is using customer purchase data to identify shoppers’ behaviour and deliver more targeted offers. Its online channels include an app and voucher management system that use past purchasing behaviour to identify customers who are new to a category or product, or who have lapsed.

Chan said this allows FairPrice Group to work with suppliers on more precise targeting, including introducing customers to new products or product categories.

The same approach is being extended to physical stores. FairPrice Group has launched a smart cart that allows customers to unlock a trolley through its app, which can connect to their loyalty profile and previous purchases. “Immediately my AI recommender will give you three personalised vouchers based on your past purchases."

The smart cart also uses RFID technology to surface relevant promotions as shoppers move through the store. FairPrice is also using voice-to-text technology to help customers locate products, while digital price cards and dynamic QR codes are being rolled out across physical-store touchpoints.

Chan highlighted FairPrice Group’s Punggol Digital District store as an example of its approach to technology-enabled retail. The store, developed in collaboration with Google, uses CCTV to track customer movement and support inventory management.

FairPrice Group is also applying AI to other physical-store touchpoints, including dynamic QR codes, digital price cards, and its point-of-sale systems.

Chan said the retailer has revamped its point-of-sale system to collect more customer feedback and potentially provide vouchers for future visits.

The personalisation strategy is underpinned by efforts to consolidate FairPrice’s customer data. Chan said the retailer spent 12 months cleaning and deduplicating a database that had grown to 10 million records, despite Singapore having a population of about 5.9 million.

Moreover, FairPrice is combining transactional and membership data with other sources to develop what Chan called a “golden profile” of its customers.

The retailer has about 2.5 million Link loyalty members, with around 70% digitally connected, and approximately 600 touchpoints across grocery, convenience, pharmacy and food services.

Chan said the retailer is also distinguishing between mass and personalised promotions. Whilst mass promotions are designed to drive traffic and volume, personalised offers are intended to influence customer behaviour and basket composition.

FairPrice Group is also using AI to improve internal productivity and campaign production. Chan said the retailer has 85 different price card formats across its stores and previously relied on agencies to adapt creative materials.

The group is still experimenting with hyper-personalisation and recommended that retailers starting their personalisation journey first work with customer segments before moving towards more individualised targeting.

For FairPrice, Chan said the broader goal is to use its customer data to improve the shopping experience.

“It is really about not just serving the nation with tomatoes and eggs, but how can Fairprice become the data powerhouse that can leverage on the data that we have for our customer, from also our partners, to better serve every single shopper that walk into Fairprice," she said.