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An important way to achieve greater retail success is to be more data-centric.<\/p>\n
Relying on\u00a0retail analytics and hard data rather than guesswork helps companies make more educated decisions about the products they carry.<\/p>\n
They can dig into point of sale information across the entire enterprise and send the right mix of products to the stores best suited to sell them.<\/p>\n
Understanding the customer helps retailers improve customer satisfaction and earn higher profits.<\/p>\n
Data collection is ubiquitous.<\/p>\n
Ecommerce shoppers understand their information is logged and stored with each transaction, even if anonymously.<\/p>\n
Brick and mortar retailers collect data through POS software and gather geographic information by entering ZIP codes.<\/p>\n
The information that can be collected is varied, but at a minimum includes customer, transactional, inventory, and shipment data.<\/p>\n
There’s also data to be mined in social media, location and in-store movement.<\/p>\n
Retailers have always needed to pay attention to what customers are thinking.<\/p>\n
Whether the buzz is about a hot brand, a rising trend, or a celebrity endorsement, savvy retailers are in-the-know.<\/p>\n
Today, much of that type of information is just a click away, on platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.<\/p>\n
“Social listening” requires retailers to pay attention to what target customers are saying.<\/p>\n
Many use social media monitoring services to analyze their audiences and identify product gaps in their offerings compared with competitors as well as with customer expectations.<\/p>\n
As they say in real estate, “location, location, location.”<\/p>\n
Retailers looking to expand can use current-store data from transactions in their POS software to inform decisions when selecting future sites.<\/p>\n
By studying where target consumers visit most frequently and analyzing movement patterns around specific areas, retailers can take much of the guesswork out of expansion plans.<\/p>\n
Incorporating demographic information and personas into location vetting provides insights into consumer behaviors, helping to ensure that the ultimate site selected will have the “right” customers nearby.<\/p>\n
Geolocation has been used for several years by retailers who use the technology to alert nearby customers to promotions.<\/p>\n
Today, location-tracking technology can monitor shoppers with pinpoint accuracy, allowing retailers to know, for example, if a customer went to the fitting room but didn’t make a purchase, or which cosmetic counters were visited.<\/p>\n
Sales of location-targeted advertising could reach $21 billion this year, according to CNBC.<\/p>\n
However, it’s not the quantity of the data collected that is most important, rather it’s knowing how to digest and use it that counts.<\/p>\n
Collecting and consolidating all of that data provides a powerful overview of every action customers have taken \u2013 on their mobile devices, on the website, or in a brick and mortar store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An important way to achieve greater retail success is to be more data-centric. Relying on\u00a0retail analytics and hard data rather than guesswork helps companies make more educated decisions about the products they carry. They can dig into point of sale … Continue reading