Customer lifetime value is quickly becoming the metric that separates grocers built for the next decade from grocers still optimizing for the next quarter. One of the clearest signs of that short-term thinking is breakage. The quiet profit grocers collect when a customer forgets to redeem a discount, reward, or promotion.  On paper, it looks like free money: a customer signs up, life...

Customer lifetime value is quietly becoming the deciding factor between grocers who grow and grocers who stall, even when both are doing everything else right.   Every business, grocery included, wrestles with the same tension between chasing short-term gains and building long-term growth. For years, one common source of short-term gains in grocery came from breakage, the quiet profit...