Your retail software runs through oceans of discrete and inferred data at every moment.

• Point of sale transactional data
• E-commerce sales data
• Browsing behavior data

In its disconnected state, the data is useless – just a torrent of numbers, sales figures, totals, and percentages. It tells you very little about the people who shop with you.

Many retailers today are still using software that keeps their data segregated by channel, which means they can’t see how the same customer is interacting with your online store versus your physical store. It means they can’t see whether their promotions are reaching their targeted customer to increase their shopping frequency.

That is what we at Retail Pro International call retail chaos.

But when those various data points are unified, they create a single, 360° view of your customer – the numbers become an individual with actual likes, loves, and needs.

It also gives you a total, 360° view of your target customer base as a whole – which gives you a more complete understanding of how you can better meet and anticipate their needs with the products you sell.

Platform software like Retail Pro is different from your average retail tech.

A platform is a digital foundation that connects data from every point at which it’s generated, including:

• Your mobile and stationary POS software
• Your product planning, assortment, and merchandising software
• Your business intelligence, loyalty, marketing, digital receipts applications
• Your payments processor
• Emerging tech like beacons, RFID, and footfall
• Your e-commerce data
• Your in-store endless aisle kiosk
• And any other tools or applications you use

This means that:

• You can see where all of your inventory is (at the warehouse, in transit, across the globe, on the shelf, in the bin, out of stock)
• Your brick-and-mortar stores can see inventory availability at different locations
• Your e-commerce store can see and use inventory from your physical stores
• Your loyalty applications can tap into transactional data for initiatives targeted to a particular customer’s buying habits
• Your marketing team can send emails personalized with a customer’s likes and dislikes
• You can package slow and fast moving items for promotions across channels

…which means you get a complete picture of your customer’s interaction with you – and you retail smarter.

#stopretailchaos