Now’s the Time to Personalize

Back in December, I wrote about how the grocery store has changed since the 1980s. That post was a scouting report on the evolution of what sits on shelves, how people shop, and what consumers expect in the modern world. One of the most striking takeaways was that even though the quantity of products has taken a slight dip since their peak in the 2010s, today’s average supermarket still carries nearly four times as many items as it did four decades ago.

Choice is everywhere. And while that may sound like a good thing, it introduces a new kind of challenge: ensuring consumers find what they want without feeling overwhelmed. More options mean more decisions, and more decisions can easily lead to decision fatigue, confusion, or walking away entirely. Remember the jam experiment?

But having more options does not have to be a burden. For consumers, it can be an invitation to explore and a chance to discover products that truly align with their preferences. That curated exploration, however, does not happen without intentional action. It’s up to retailers and brands to create environments that support the consumer’s search, not by simply filling shelves with more products, but by tailoring selections that connect with consumers in meaningful ways.

To see what this looks like in action, let’s step outside the world of CPG and into the world of consumer technology, where companies like Netflix and Spotify tackled a similar problem:

How do you help people navigate overwhelming abundance?

In the mid 2010s, both Spotify and Netflix faced this challenge, and both leveraged innovative features and personalization to drive growth. But for the purposes of this post, we are going to focus strictly on Spotify.

While Spotify had already built a massive library of licensed music at this point in time, user growth hadn’t followed at the same speed. Simply offering more content was not generating more users. The company’s 675M Monthly Active Users as of last year came by personalizing discovery, building listening habits, and creating emotional connections that kept users returning daily. Spotify made the listening experience feel effortless, exciting, and uniquely personal.

As the chart above shows, the company took off after 2016. Once Spotify cracked the formula for helping users maneuver through overwhelming optionality to discover what truly matters to them, the company prospered… and it didn’t stop there. Spotify kept refining the listening experience so that switching to a competitor feels almost unthinkable. How would you get your playlists back? What would you do without your daylist? Could you really give up posting your Spotify Wrapped on your Insta Story at the end of the year? The better Spotify became at guiding discovery, the higher the perceived cost of leaving became.

This same mindset applies to today’s retailers and FMCG brands. It's up to them to create environments that support the consumer’s search by tailoring selections in ways that feel relevant and meaningful. And now is the ideal moment to act: the shopping experience is rapidly shifting to digital, where online marketplaces (both through retailers and DTC) can be customized faster and more cost-effectively than in brick-and-mortar environments. According to McKinsey’s State of the Consumer 2025 report, a staggering 40% of consumers in Germany, the UK, and the US used grocery delivery in the past week.

To make the most of this shift, retailers should apply Spotify-like strategies to their platforms using data, design, and personalization. And brands should not only partner alongside these retailers to facilitate this approach, but they should leverage these strategies themselves for their own eCommerce websites.

Scouting Report: What CPG Can Learn from Spotify

Spotify didn’t become the world’s most popular audio streaming service just by offering more songs. Its success is attributed to tailoring the experience to each listener’s unique tastes. Here are three tactics Spotify used to make its massive content library feel personal and how retailers and manufacturers can apply them:

Sidenote: don’t judge my Spotify personalization.

1) Discover Weekly → “The Pantry’s Weekly”

Here we have a personalized, rotating feed of ~10 new items the consumer has not tried but would likely enjoy based on actual shopping behavior and dietary choices. Although some retailers highlight past purchases and deals on their website, few offer curated discovery options that emphasize new products.

This feature provides consumers with the opportunity to discover lesser-known food items every week, conveniently timed with their typical shopping day. Each new rotation is personalized and filtered using helpful dietary tags (such as gluten-free, low-sugar, or vegan) making it easy to browse options that fit their lifestyle. This approach allows consumers to experience the thrill of novelty while reducing the risk they feel when trying something new.

Manufacturers can introduce their latest products directly to highly targeted, interested consumers (those most likely to become loyal fans) by investing in temporary placements on discovery lists. This not only increases exposure among their ICPs (ideal customer profiles) but also helps these brands stand out in a crowded market.

2) Today’s Top Hits → “Live Pantry Trends”

Spotify shows trending songs with “Today’s Top Hits” and “Country Top 50” to name a few. Retailer websites, apps, and other digital platforms should do something similar, showing real-time trending foods. They can even go a step further and tailor the items to the consumer’s local area or zip code, dietary preference, special occasion… the list goes on. For example, see “What’s Trending in Your Region” or “Top 4 Items Bought for Father’s Day Weekend in Your Area.”

This idea leverages sales data that retailers already have, making it relatively easy to transform product selections into dynamic trends. What stands out most to me is that it provides tangible proof of purchase behavior. Consumers are naturally curious, and FOMO often drives buying decisions, but at the core, people want reassurance that what they are buying will live up to their expectations. By showcasing market validation, this approach offers that extra layer of confidence, helping to push consumers across the finish line.

3) Repeat Rewind → “Pantry Throwbacks”

Just as Spotify lets listeners rediscover their favorite hits with “Repeat Rewind” and other personalized playlists, grocers and brands can create experiences that strike the same nostalgic chord using consumer’s go-to purchases. A “Pantry Throwbacks” or “Your Grocery Replay” feature that highlights beloved favorites from specific time periods takes the simple act of listing items under “Favorites” to a whole new level.

How would this play out? Here are a few examples:

“Your 2024 Summer Rewind features grilled peaches, smoked salmon, and the perfect rosé, paired with a one-time favorite of yours… a box of chocolates that you haven’t picked up in months."

“Remember making that buffalo chicken dip for your sister’s bridal shower?”

“It has been a year since you paired Annie’s mac-n-cheese with a side of grapes. Craving your old go-to lunch?”

Instead of relisting your latest shopping list, this approach weaves in context and past purchase history to create nostalgia. It recasts consumption as a series of life-linked moments, combining grocery shopping with storytelling, seasonal rediscovery, and the surprise of finding an old favorite at just the right time.

What sets this concept apart from typical retailer categories is the deep sense of personalization and emotion it brings. Unlike standard loyalty programs that simply remind you of recent purchases, this approach offers an emotionally resonant experience, like Spotify’s “Repeat Rewind,” which listeners return to again and again.

And this feature is not just for major marketplaces. Brands of any size can create nostalgia products through their DTC channel based on seasonal habits, rekindling excitement for legacy SKUs and building genuine emotional loyalty. For shoppers, these memory-driven cues can be the difference between forgetting a product entirely and joyfully returning to a familiar favorite for years to come.

Playbook