What if there was a way for brands to cut through the noise, beat the competition, and effectively appeal to consumers with a personalised experience — on an item-by-item basis?

With item-level tracking, brands are empowered to personalise the experience for each product that touches consumers' hands, to educate, inform, and inspire.

What Is Item-Level Tracking?

Just as each car has an identifying license plate number, and each person has a unique name and driver’s license number, each item has a Digital Product ID that identifies the product.

This is similar to how a cell phone and laptop would have different SKUs — but it goes beyond that. Rather than phones with different models, colors, and/or different memory storage capabilities having different identifiers, every single individual cell phone has its own Digital Product ID to track.

This is similar to a serial number but done in a way that’s generally more accessible to the consumer and all hands that access a product throughout its production and beyond.

Item-level tracking is done with technology like QR codes and NFC tags connected to a smart products platform. When scanned or tapped, the platform connected to the item level tracker launches, providing a personalised experience.

This empowers brands with better metrics for tracking and traceability and connects with consumers on a deeper, more personalised level, enhancing their experience.

Why Brands Should Be Tracking Products on an Item Level

There are many benefits to going beyond a SKU and enabling items with unique item-level trackers.

More consumer personalisation: Brands can cut through the noise and provide better experiences with item-level tracking. Brands can tailor experiences based on things like location, time, consumer data and more to appeal to consumers with timed and tailored approaches.

Better supply chain track-and-trace: Brands are empowered with more detailed data on items as they go through manufacturing and production. Everyone, including farmers, suppliers, manufacturers, transport teams and retailers (including the brands themselves), can input product data to give personalised reports on individual product journeys.

Gray market diversion to identify counterfeits: Digital Product IDs help brands and consumers alike know a product’s authenticity and show that a product has been verified as the real deal. This is especially helpful for items in secondhand markets and deters malicious buyers or sellers from selling or returning counterfeit products.

Deliver item provenance to consumers: Consumers in secondhand markets can see the product’s ownership and transference. They are empowered with data on how many owners an item has had, when it was made and more.

Get consumers involved with sustainability initiatives: As consumers are increasingly pushing for brands to be more sustainable, brands can set themselves aside as leaders in the circular economy and encourage customers to do the same. Companies can tell consumers how to return, reuse, resell and recycle products to give them a circular — rather than linear — life cycle.

And more: The sky is the limit with how brands can use Digital Product IDs to connect with consumers.

How Item-Level Tracking Enhances the Customer Experience

In a world saturated with content, item-level tracking empowers brands to give consumers a personalised approach.

Appeals to consumers with personalisation: Brands can use first- and zero-party data provided by consumers themselves in combination with location, time, and more, to create personalised approaches and messaging. This is the most effective delivery to appeal directly to consumers’ wants and needs, rather than a broader, less effective marketing system.

Shows brands care about sustainability: A sustainability survey from the environmental technology company GreenPrint found that 78% of people are more likely to purchase a product labeled as environmentally friendly, while 64% of Americans are willing to pay more for sustainable products.

As consumers increasingly demand brands be more sustainable, item-level tracking helps brands:

• Share sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Show steps they’re taking to be circular
• Educate and inform consumers on how they can reuse, recycle, resell or repurpose products
• Inspire consumers to be players in the circular economy.

Boosts brand loyalty: When brands use item-level tracking and Digital IDs, it boosts customer loyalty for several reasons.

• Appeals to growing consumer demand for sustainable businesses
• Personalisation draws in consumers with customised, rather than broad, messaging
• Builds a relationship with consumers as they access and input information on their individual products

Digital Product IDs and the Future of Brands

Consumers are drawn to brands that are transparent about sustainability practices and go the extra mile to connect with them — and Digital IDs like those powered by Blue Bite do just that. 

They empower brands to access key product metrics throughout production, sales and beyond. With Digital IDs, brands can share data with and continue to learn from consumers as they input data on individual products after they’ve left the store.

Brands can use Digital IDs and item-level tracking to inform, educate and inspire consumers as they work to build lasting relationships with timed and tailored content — ultimately boosting the bottom line. Companies are empowered to create dynamic content that appeals to consumers and shows them how to be players in the circular economy.

And it goes beyond that. There are no limits to how brands can personalise their approach to connecting with consumers using item-level tracking.

If you’re a brand looking to build relationships with consumers and stand out as a key player in the circular economy, Digital IDs are key to cutting through the noise in a digital world overloaded with content