Innovator Profile: Peekage Helps Brands Target Strategic Audiences via Product Sampling Platform

Introduction 

The Coresight Research team will attend and participate in this year’s Groceryshop conference, which will be held on September 19–22, 2022, in Las Vegas, US. Groceryshop 2022 will explore the changing grocery landscape and help businesses navigate the rapid rise in e-commerce, the latest business models and technologies, and the shifting consumer behaviors that are impacting the industry.

On September 19, 2022, Deborah Weinswig, CEO and Founder of Coresight Research, will emcee and feature on the judging panel of Groceryshop 2022’s “Shark Reef” startup pitch competition, which will see 12 early-stage innovators compete to win the Judges’ Choice and Audience Choice awards. In the lead-up to the event, we are profiling the participating innovators. 

This report forms part of our Innovator Profile series, which focuses on emerging technologies that are disrupting traditional retail and fueling innovation across the retail value chain. We present Peekage, a retail-technology company that offers an online product sampling platform to help users understand consumer preferences and optimize their marketing campaigns. Coresight Research collaborated with Peekage to offer insights into its capabilities and offerings.

Areas of Innovation

Coresight Research categorizes the 12 participating innovators into three areas of innovation in retail: fulfillment and sustainability; product marketing and merchandising; and AI (artificial intelligence), ML (machine learning) and automation. Peekage falls under “product marketing and merchandising.”

Brands and retailers are increasingly finding innovative ways to expand their marketing reach and brand awareness. Advances in retail technology and accessibility to shopper data are supporting omnichannel marketing and merchandising strategies to achieve growth. 

Peekage: In Detail

Headquarters 

Toronto, Canada 

Funding Stage 

Pre-seed 

Total funding raised: $120,000

Company Description

Founded in 2019, Peekage has developed a business-to-consumer online product sampling platform that enables online brands and CPG companies to better understand their target audiences and optimize their marketing campaigns. 

Shoppers that sign up for the Peekage app can choose from thousands of products and try those that interest them for free. Shoppers are rewarded for providing feedback on sample products, which brands can use to improve their offerings.  

Peekage helps brands and CPG companies increase brand awareness by targeting consumers strategically, based on over 200 characteristic filters, including age, lifestyle and diet, to reach their desired demographic group(s). Moreover, brands can use Peekage to drive foot traffic to retail stores via collection fulfillment methods for product trials or send the items directly to the consumer via delivery. 

What Problem Is the Company Solving?

While online product marketing provides a vast audience, it can be challenging for brands and CPG companies to get through to the specific segments of shoppers that are most likely to buy their products. As a result, costly and timely marketing campaigns can yield lackluster shopper interest and low conversion rates. 

What’s more, shoppers are often faced with the decision of buying a product online without fully understanding its features and applications, which often increases the risk of dissatisfaction, bad reviews and returns. By sampling products via the Peekage platform, shoppers can better decide whether a product will suit them before placing an order—as well as contributing to continuous product improvement by leaving their feedback.   

Market Opportunity 

We believe that brands and CPG companies will continue to grow their online sales this year amid inflation-driven price increases and sustained consumer demand for personalized products and quick delivery of everyday essentials, such as food and beverages. 

Year-over-year growth in US CPG e-commerce sales increased to 19.0% in July, returning to the high-teens growth seen in March and April this year. We expect year-over-year online growth to strengthen next month as comparatives weaken in August.

Online brand and CPG companies should look to product sampling to aggregate shoppers’ feedback to drive future enhancements to their products while raising brand awareness among targeted audiences. Three-quarters of US retailers and CPG brands consider product sampling as the most effective in-store engagement tactic in creating customer excitement, and 60% consider product sampling to be very important in product discovery, according to a Coresight Research survey conducted in August 2021. 

What We Think

Strategic product sampling to relevant audiences can help companies drive brand awareness and increase sales conversions, especially amid sustained online channel stickiness.

Brands and CPG companies should work with retail-technology companies to optimize how they connect with target audiences and provide easy access to product samples. Shopper feedback is a valuable tool in informing product enhancement initiatives.