Tractor Supply works to give consumers a personalized shopping experience, likely with an interaction from one of its employees with an assist from artificial intelligence, Chief Marketing Officer Kimberley Gardiner discussed at the CommerceNext Growth Show in June in New York City.
Tractor Supply is a rural lifestyle retailer, selling agricultural, livestock, pet care, and home improvement products. The retailer generated $15.52 billion in net sales in its 2025 fiscal year, which was a 4.3% year-over-year increase. It has 2,400 stores with 50,000 team members, and stores fulfill roughly 80% of its online orders.
Tractor Supply’s stores are the hub of the activity, with its employees serving as an emotional connection of the brand to the customer. In fact, many of its employees were regular customers before they started working for Tractor Supply, Gardiner said.
“They live the lifestyle,” Gardiner said. “They have some sort of expertise in some of the areas around the things in the store. That makes a big difference.”
Tractor Supply Thoughtfully Integrates AI Tools
The brand is looking to use AI tools for its employees to provide a more personalized, relevant and convenient customer experience.
“Digital and AI especially is great for scaling convenience,” she said.
But it has to ensure that it keeps humans at the center especially when shoppers are coming in for advice and guidance. For example, employees likely know a shopper’s name and pet’s name. The AI can help to efficiently find the right products for a shopper.
“How do we do more with what we have now, not so much about how do we do more with less in terms of headcount — at least now,” she said.
One example of this is a generative AI tool it developed for employees. If a shopper comes into the store because they have a sick animal, the employee could input the symptom into Tractor Supply’s own large language model to receive product recommendations about the best way to care for that animal.
“That’s a nice way to balance the two of those things in terms of what’s the return from an AI perspective and then what’s the return from making sure that you have that really close store connection with our team members,” Gardiner said.
What Does “Frictionless” Actually Mean?
The retailer is still working on the best way to use AI to provide a “frictionless” experience to shoppers, because what a “frictionless experience” is means something different to each shopper, she said. For some, it might mean convenience, others speed and other having more automation.
Beyond this customer facing example, the marketing team uses AI in several ways including to:
- Analyze customer data
- Test messages to see what resonates with different customer segments
- Build models to reduce churn and trigger journeys
The Right Message to All its Customer Segments
Tractor Supply has five customer segments that scale up in terms of their needs and how frequently they shop with the retailer, from a few times a year to once a week: the Country Dabbler, the Backyard Homesteader, the Pet Enthusiast, the Hobby Farmer and the Big Barn customer.
The merchant has to ensure that its marketing messages speak across these groups, from the consumers who are fully emersed in the rural lifestyle to the ones who are just dabbling. It does this through its authenticity and staying true to its core customer strategy of “Life Out Here.”
“At the heart of all those customers is this aspiration and inspiration around ‘Life Out Here,’” Gardiner said. “The imagery that we show, the things that we have in our TV spots. For example, in our social media content, we have real team members, we have real customers, we show real property. We film in our stores. There’s that authenticity that speaks to all kinds of different customer segments.”
