For a long time, product registration was treated as an operational task. Name, code, brand, dimensions, color, material, category, subcategory, price, inventory, image, and a technical description good enough to feed the ERP, publish the product on the ecommerce platform, and make the item available online.

It worked for years.

But it worked for an internet that no longer exists.

Consumers have changed the way they search. They are no longer just looking for a product name. They describe a need. They share a situation. They bring a question. They ask for advice. They compare possibilities. They have a conversation.

And this is where many ecommerce platforms begin to reveal a major weakness: they are still prepared to respond to keywords, while consumers are already asking questions in natural language.

I have been showing this in talks and recent projects. We urgently need to rethink the way products are registered in ERPs, ecommerce platforms, and digital catalogs. The ERP may need a technical description, because its role is to organize the operation. But a brand’s own ecommerce platform cannot bring that same cold, limited, internal logic into the consumer experience.

The ERP sees the product as an inventory item.

The consumer sees the product as a solution within a context.

This difference may seem simple, but it changes everything.

During a talk at ABRIN, I used an example that clearly illustrates this new moment. I ran a conversational search for a toy for a level 3 autistic child, something that requires attention to very specific characteristics, such as appropriate sensory stimulation, safety, simplicity, predictability, resistance, texture, noise level, usage format, and level of complexity.

This is not an ordinary search. It is a search filled with context.

It is not about looking for a “children’s toy.” It is not even about looking for an “educational toy.” The intent is much deeper. The consumer wants help to choose better. They want to reduce the risk of buying the wrong product. They want to understand what makes sense for a child with specific needs.

When I brought that same logic to one of the largest toy ecommerce sites in the world, Toys R Us, the results showed the size of the problem. The search led to products such as a three level parking garage, because of the association with “level 3,” and a level 3 difficulty puzzle, exactly the opposite of what that search intent required.

This example is powerful because it does not show only a search failure. It shows an interpretation failure.

The website found words. But it did not understand the person.

That is the real rupture.

For years, we believed that improving internal search meant better organizing keywords, tags, categories, and filters. This still matters, but it is no longer enough. The new search is no longer born only from isolated terms. It is born from context, intent, usage occasion, restrictions, needs, consumer profile, and purchase purpose.

The customer does not want to type “black cotton T shirt size M.”

They may ask: “Which black T shirt can I wear to a casual event, that does not get too warm and does not wrinkle easily?”

They are not only searching for “ergonomic office chair.”

They may ask: “Which chair makes sense for someone who works eight hours a day from home, has lower back pain, and has little space in the bedroom?”

They are not simply looking for “sensory toy.”

They may say: “I need a safe gift for a level 3 autistic child who is bothered by noise and likes soft textures.”

The difference between these searches is not in the product. It is in the intelligence required to connect the product to the real problem.

And most owned ecommerce sites are still not ready for this.

I have had the opportunity to conduct analysis projects for companies in different segments, and the scenario repeats itself with worrying frequency. Catalogs rich in SKUs, but poor in meaning. Products that are well registered for the operation, but poorly explained for the journey. Descriptions that serve the system, but do not support the decision. Important attributes hidden. Benefits poorly translated. Possible uses ignored. Restrictions not declared. Consumption occasions absent.

Digital retail still carries the legacy of the internet of the 2000s. An internet based on entries, rigid fields, keywords, and category based navigation.

But consumers have already been trained by another logic.

They talk to AI to choose a trip, compare a smartphone, plan a diet, understand a health issue, summarize a contract, organize a party, choose a gift, and decide what to buy. They do not want only a digital shelf. They want guidance.

And when guidance does not come from the website, it comes from somewhere else.

This may be the most important point for any company with its own ecommerce platform: the fight for the sale begins before the visit to the website. In many cases, it starts in a conversation with artificial intelligence. The consumer asks AI what to buy, why to buy it, which criteria to consider, which brands to compare, and which risks to avoid.

If AI does not understand your products, it will not recommend your products.

And it only understands what is well structured, well described, well contextualized, and connected to a real search intent.

The keyword is dead as the center of search.

This does not mean it has disappeared. It means it has lost the throne.

In times of AI, it is not enough to register “blue school backpack.” You need to explain who it is for, in which occasion it works, which age group it serves, how much weight it supports, which routine it fits into, which pain points it solves, which doubts it removes, and which choice criteria it can answer.

It is not enough to register “facial moisturizer.” You need to explain skin type, texture, usage moment, restrictions, sensitivity, expected result, composition, comparison with other products, and common questions from buyers.

It is not enough to register “educational toy.” You need to explain the skill it stimulates, the real age range, level of complexity, need for supervision, sensory stimulation, safety, inclusion, durability, and usage context.

Product registration must stop being only technical and become semantic.

It must stop answering only “what is it?” and start answering “who is it for?”, “when does it make sense?”, “why choose it?”, “when should it be avoided?”, and “which problem does it solve?”

This movement is not just an SEO improvement. It is a structural change in sales.

Because ecommerce platforms that do not understand context lose relevance on three fronts.

They lose inside their own websites, when they deliver poor results for more complex searches.

They lose outside their websites, when artificial intelligences cannot correctly interpret their products.

And they lose at the decision stage, when the consumer finds clearer, more useful, and more trustworthy information somewhere else.

The irony is that many companies invest millions in media, traffic, performance, and technology, but still treat product registration as a secondary, almost bureaucratic step. In the new search environment, however, product registration becomes a strategic asset. It is the raw material for discovery, recommendation, and conversion.

A poorly described product may even appear.

But it will hardly be chosen.

The next leap for owned ecommerce will not be only about adding AI to customer service, creating a chatbot, or personalizing the storefront. Before that, companies will need to put their house in order. Review product registration. Enrich attributes. Rewrite descriptions. Create smarter taxonomies. Map search intents. Understand real consumer questions. Translate technical characteristics into clear benefits. Prepare the catalog to be understood by both people and machines.

Consumers are already searching in a different way.

They no longer want only to find products. They want to find answers.

The big question is whether your ecommerce is prepared to answer.

Because while many websites are still trying to match words, consumers are already expecting someone to understand their context.

And when one brand does not understand, another one will.

Or AI will understand on its behalf.

And if it make you think, make it happen!

Caio Camargo

For a long time, one of the most common questions in food retail was simple: where is the consumer going?

Today, that question may no longer be enough.

Consumers are not moving toward one single place. They are moving toward a mission.

They go to the neighborhood market when they need to solve something close to home. They use an app when they want to turn distance into time. They go to cash and carry when they are willing to drive, walk through a larger store and fill the trunk in search of price. They go to an emporium when they want curation, quality and trust. They go to a traditional supermarket when they find a clear balance between convenience, assortment, service and acceptable pricing.

The problem is that this combination is becoming harder to defend.

Small neighborhood markets still have a strength that many people underestimate. In many regions, they remain relevant because of service, informal credit, real proximity, the owner who knows the customer by name, empathy and a kind of warmth that large chains cannot easily copy.

The product, in many cases, is the same product found anywhere else. The milk is the same. The rice is the same. The cold drink is the same. The bread, the cleaning product, the soda, the beer, much of the assortment can be found in other channels.

The difference lies in the relationship.

It is in the “take it now and pay me later”. It is in the “I saved the product you like”. It is in the “your mother stopped by earlier”. It is in the kind of bond that turns an ordinary store into part of the neighborhood routine.

But this relationship is also being tested.

In large cities, new competitors have entered the neighborhood with much more capital, data, standardization and expansion capacity. Large supermarket chains have invested in proximity formats because they understood that there was no longer enough room to compete only through the traditional supermarket model, especially with the rise of cash and carry.

The pandemic accelerated this movement. Consumers spent more time at home, bought closer to home, reorganized their routines and rediscovered the importance of neighborhood life.

But the same pandemic also accelerated another competitor, one that has no corner, no storefront and no sign on the street.

The app.

Digital expansion brought apps and logistics as direct rivals to traditional models. An item missing for dinner, a cold drink, a medicine, a cleaning product or a quick replenishment order can arrive at the customer’s door in minutes.

There is an important distinction here.

It is not the consumer going to the store. It is the store going to the consumer.

The customer knows that the product may not be nearby. They understand that the store may be a few kilometers away. But if it arrives fast, distance loses part of its importance. Proximity is no longer only geographic. It becomes a perception of time.

The store may be far on the map, but close in the customer’s mind.

This may be one of the biggest changes in food retail: proximity is no longer only about address.

There is the proximity of the corner, measured in steps.
There is the proximity of delivery, measured in minutes.
There is emotional proximity, measured in trust.
And there is economic proximity, measured by how much the consumer feels they made a good choice.

This is where cash and carry became so powerful.

When consumers search for price, cash and carry has become a reference. This is not by chance. In a country where income is under pressure, the shopping basket is watched closely and food weighs heavily on the household budget, price is not just a commercial argument. It is a condition for choice.

But the success of cash and carry has created new challenges.

When many banners decide to invest in the same format, competition becomes more intense, markets become more crowded and margins start to depend on an increasingly efficient operation. Cash and carry needs to sell a lot, turn inventory fast, issue many tickets and maintain strict cost discipline to sustain its promise.

That is why a curious movement is beginning to happen.

Some cash and carry chains are adding services, expanding categories, bringing in pharmacies, payment solutions, ready to eat food, financial services, private labels, convenience areas and new experiences inside the store.

In other words, the format that grew by taking space from the old hypermarket is now beginning to incorporate elements that resemble the hypermarket of the past.

The difference is that the consumer’s standards have changed.

Consumers do not want a large store just because it is large. They want every square meter to solve something. They want price when buying volume. They want practicality when they are in a hurry. They want curation when searching for quality. They want trust when buying fresh products. They want convenience when they do not want to leave home. They want experience when they decide to pay more.

Food retail, therefore, is no longer only a dispute between formats. It has become a dispute between reasons for choice.

And this makes the middle ground much more dangerous.

The retailer that is not the cheapest, not the closest, not the fastest, not the most reliable, not the most specialized and does not create any meaningful emotional bond begins to get squeezed.

Not because consumers stopped buying.

But because they have learned to separate their missions more clearly.

When they want price, they tolerate displacement.
When they want urgency, they tolerate paying more.
When they want quality, they accept choosing better and buying less.
When they want relationship, they value those who recognize them.
When they want a simpler routine, they choose whoever removes friction.

This fragmentation appears more and more in consumer research. Brazilians have not abandoned one channel to migrate permanently to another. They have started to combine more channels, visit more points of sale, reduce the size of some shopping trips and choose more carefully where each need will be met.

This changes the strategic reading.

For a long time, retail tried to classify consumers by format. Cash and carry customers. Supermarket customers. Neighborhood market customers. Emporium customers. App customers.

That consumer, isolated inside a box, is increasingly hard to find.

The same person may buy rice, beans and cleaning products at cash and carry on Saturday. Order a cold drink through an app on Sunday. Stop by the neighborhood market on Monday. Buy better meat at an emporium on Friday. Take advantage of an offer at a traditional supermarket in the middle of the week.

This is not incoherence.

It is the management of routine.

That is why the concept of the 15 minute neighborhood makes so much sense for retail. The idea of solving a large part of everyday life within a short distance, accessible on foot or by bike, reinforces the importance of local commerce, nearby services and neighborhood life.

But perhaps, in today’s retail, this concept needs to be expanded.

There is the 15 minute neighborhood on foot, where physical proximity still decides.

There is the 15 minute neighborhood by delivery, where the product is not close, but arrives fast.

There is the 15 minute neighborhood by car, where consumers accept displacement to gain price and volume.

And there is the 15 minute neighborhood of decision, where the brand needs to be remembered even before the search begins.

The purchase on foot is the purchase of real proximity. It is bread, milk, fruit, the forgotten item, the quick conversation, known service, the small daily replenishment.

The purchase that arrives by motorcycle is the purchase of perceived speed. The consumer knows that the store may not be close. But if the product arrives in a few minutes, distance loses importance. In this case, the customer does not go to retail. Retail goes to the customer.

The purchase by car is the purchase of stock up. It is the planned trip, the price comparison, the volume, the full trunk, the perception of savings and the feeling of having made a more rational purchase.

These three purchases can be made by the same person, in the same week, sometimes on the same day.

This is the central point.

Consumers no longer choose only between neighborhood markets, supermarkets, cash and carry, emporiums or apps. They choose who solves their mission best at that specific moment.

For the small neighborhood market, the answer cannot be only to resist with sympathy. Sympathy helps, but it does not sustain everything. It is necessary to improve assortment, organize simple customer data, manage categories better, communicate offers, use WhatsApp, create recurrence and turn relationships into management.

Knowing the customer by name remains an advantage. But knowing the customer by name and not understanding what they buy, when they buy, why they stopped buying and which products could increase their frequency is wasting a huge advantage.

For large proximity chains, the challenge is not to look like a small store with the soul of a cold operation. Scale helps, but neighborhoods require local reading. The same store that works in an affluent region may not work in the same way in a popular area. The same assortment that solves one location may feel distant in another.

Proximity is not just opening a smaller store. It is understanding the surroundings better.

For cash and carry, the challenge is not to lose itself trying to be everything to everyone. The more services it adds, the more it needs to protect its main promise: price, volume and efficiency. If cash and carry becomes too expensive, too complex or too confusing, it risks weakening exactly what made it strong.

For apps, the challenge is to prove that convenience can walk together with perceived value. Fast delivery is attractive, but fees, higher prices, out of stocks and poor substitutions can quickly break trust. Speed drives the first purchase. Consistency builds recurrence.

For emporiums and specialized models, the opportunity lies in curation. When everything can be found anywhere, choosing well for the customer becomes a service. Quality, origin, freshness, experience and trust can sustain smaller models, as long as the value is clear.

The consumer is not going to one single destination.

They are distributing their choices.

They go where their mission is best solved at that moment. Sometimes, that will be the neighborhood market. Sometimes, the app. Sometimes, cash and carry. Sometimes, the emporium. Sometimes, a proximity store from a large chain.

So the question for retailers is no longer only where the consumer will buy.

The question is tougher.

In which shopping mission are you still the best answer?

Because those who cannot answer this clearly risk being trapped in the worst possible place in retail: the middle without positioning.

Not cheap enough to justify displacement.
Not close enough to justify convenience.
Not fast enough to justify the app.
Not special enough to justify the price.
Not close enough to justify preference.

Consumers are still shopping.

They are simply going wherever makes more sense.

There is a new tension in the air. Across much of the Western innovation circuit, AI is now framed with semantic brakes: trust, responsibility, dignity, human oversight. It is not hard to see why. Any technology capable of reshaping work, power, and influence tends to trigger fear first, regulation second, and strategic conflict soon after.

But while the West takes the stage to debate limits, China seems far more interested in pushing AI into the real economy as infrastructure, not as a philosophical dilemma.

That difference matters because it does not create only different narratives. It creates different speeds. And in technology, speed almost always turns into learning, scale, cost efficiency, and competitive advantage.

From there, several scenarios begin to emerge. In the first, China consolidates its position as a kind of cognitive factory of the world, combining automation, intelligent agents, industrial integration, and rapid diffusion across sectors. In that case, the center of the dispute shifts. The winner is no longer the one who invents best, but the one who implements fastest.

In the second, the West tries to turn caution into a competitive asset. An economy of trust begins to take shape, where auditable, explainable, and regulated AI carries more value in sensitive sectors such as healthcare, finance, education, and government. It is a plausible path. But there is a hidden risk inside it: trust without scale may become nothing more than an elegant seal placed on slower structures.

In the third scenario, the world splits into two grammars. On one side, markets that reward speed, diffusion, and operational aggression. On the other, markets that demand legitimacy, governance, and predictability. Global companies are then forced to play on two boards at once, building different architectures for different environments.

There is also a quieter scenario, perhaps the most dangerous of all: caution stops being strategy and becomes ritual. When that happens, the language of preserving the human ceases to be vision and starts functioning as a screen for slowness. Not out of bad faith, but out of inertia. This is how economic empires begin to lose ground: not when they fail loudly, but when they turn prudence into paralysis.

In the end, perhaps we are not merely witnessing a technological dispute, but a clash between models of economic civilization. On one side are those trying to frame AI before it disrupts the world. On the other are those willing to reorganize the world with it.

The real question is: which of these visions will produce more prosperity, more power, and more influence in the years ahead?

Caio Camargo