Consumers love eCommerce; every year the number of purchases made online continues to grow, and many even prefer online shopping to shopping in the real world. But there is one group of people who are not 100 percent in love with this trend: owners of small physical shops. They have been hungry for a tool that can even the playing field, and it may have finally arrived.

“SAP Anywhere is a front-office application. What that means is it’s an application for a small business to use to engage with their customers,” said Toby Davidson, VP of Product Strategy, SAP Anywhere at SAP SE. Davidson told Peter Burris (@plburris), cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, the application seeks to redistribute and democratize the power to market directly to consumers via their devices, as well as understand and drive their purchasing behavior using Big Data and other technologies.

Making up the difference

Davidson said that the tool will break down barriers for both B2B and B2C businesses by allowing them to operate virtually. Customers can order online, pay with PayPal, and either pick up their purchase or have it delivered. “They’re not restricted by their traditional selling method,” he said.

The increase in volume of sales this could produce may even allow them to lower their prices, basically stripping the big guys of any advantage they have over them.

Gleaning intelligence on customers through social and data is also part of the formula. “By bringing the elements of Big Data together, we’re able to tie together who you bought from, where you bought, what kinds of things do you like,” he said. “We can help deliver some intelligence back to that small retailer to re-target to you.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of SAP Sapphire 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE