Today, the number of retailers has grown exponentially, and so has the information available to customers too: this is no longer a one-way, top-down communication. Savvy consumers spend time researching their purchases before committing, and doing so opens for an entire new customer experience – online. Digital disruption, retention, loyalty, logistics, in-store experience, inventory management, all of these are challenges retailers face on a daily basis. But they are not alone and can have a powerful ally in the matter, provided they do not turn their back on it nor overlook it: data and analytics. In this article, we will look at 4 ways how retail businesses can take advantage of their analytics.
1. You Have Data. Plain & Simple.
If you are not at present, you should actually start to use big data to your advantage. Through the many different communication channels, but also from the operations side, you are permanently using different management software that collect a lot of data. This data is a gold mine for any business willing to improve its operational activities and to know their customer base better – and in general, to make better-informed and thus enhanced decisions.
With the help of a retail analytics software, it becomes easy to combine the various databases involved in the data collection, and to analyze all of that information conjointly. That helps in spotting trends and patterns that would otherwise remain unseen. Digging up in your information will inevitably bring out insights that you can use to track your performance, its evolution, see how far you are on your goals’ roadmap, and in general, improve your decision-making.
2. Business And IT Can Work Together More Strategically
The development and access of self-service analytics software helped small and medium-sized companies a lot in term of data analysis. When one does not have the means to have a specific IT department taking care of the data report in real-time, it becomes hard to find time, energy and resources to do so. Bigger companies have also benefitted from the independence BI tools brought along: there is no need to wait for the IT service to produce a data report, which will inevitably be outdated. At the same time, IT teams are freed from this time-consuming and repetitive tasks, and can allocate their skills to activities with a greater added-value.
With a greater room for improvement, IT and business can work together on more strategic ideas: business users explore the data, analyze, visualize it and come up with new hypotheses and tests that IT can put into action.
3. Improve Your Operations Dramatically
With an always-shorter product life cycle and ever-changing consumer trends, it is a rather difficult high pace retailers have to follow – with the probability of always being a little bit too late. Thanks to real-time analytics, you have an immediate feedback on all of the aspects of your business: marketing, sales, but also the supply chain.
Monitoring what is happening in your supply chain, from the inventory accuracy to the percentage of out of stock items, you have all the keys in hand to unlock precious insights that will inform you about the operational efficiency of your logistics, transportation, supply chain, etc. Spotting out trends, patterns and outliers will improve decisions, finding bottlenecks and reacting immediately will give you a time-advantage to drive better operations and save thousands to millions of dollars.
4. Learn More About Your Customers, Their Journey And Behavior
As we already stated, today’s customers are more empowered, knowledgeable and connected than ever before. Thanks to social media, test-and-rating platforms, and e-commerce in general, they have access to any kind of information in a blink. Their customer journey is filled with competitors, and they usually expect more from companies. Providing them with a seamless experience throughout the website with all the information available will play in your advantage.
This is why more than ever the customer experience fuels sales and drives retention. In that state of mind, marketers need to adapt on a continuous basis and connect in many different ways with consumers. Having data about your customers’ journeys across various channels will help you make the best decisions. Thanks to it, you can figure out what is really happening throughout the entire customer journey, and at which stage of the funnel. You can also learn about your customers and their demographics, interests, geo-location, how they arrived on your website, or what time they are active and thus is the best to reach them.
Rich of all this knowledge, you can personalize their experience and increase their satisfaction!
Illustration of A Brand That Used Retail Analytics To Its Advantage
This example is a good illustration of a partnership between two brands using analytics.
The Weather Channel is an incredibly forward-thinking broadcaster and has cutting-edge data platforms at its disposal whose goal is to study the impact of the weather on their viewers’ emotions. They do so in order to harness the power of predictive analytics, and drive their advertising partners’ campaigns in the right direction by finding where or when they could benefit from a valuable locational trend.
In a partnership with Walgreens and Pantene, they used their data to anticipate the days when air humidity would be at its highest: that immediately triggered a targeted campaign prompting women to buy their products in order to prevent “embarrassing” (...or so they say) seasonal frizz. The result was a 10% increase in sales of Pantene at Walgreens over two months after the campaign’s launch.
This specific illustration is one of the many big data in retail example you can find on the internet.
Conclusion
Big data is the future of retail, and to succeed in today and tomorrow’s world you cannot ignore it. Knowing how to leverage customer insights is crucial to thrive and not lag behind competitors. Step up your game and embrace a data-driven decision-making that will give you a competitive edge in an accelerating marketplace.
