The time has come where simple old ways of retailing will not work anymore
The customers have access to both e-commerce and brick and mortar stores. Retailers need to implement more technology and data-centric solutions to stay ahead of the next-gen retail game. The idea is not just to gather important data from all the touchpoints but also to analyze it tactfully and on priority to leverage from the derived insights. It is high time the guesswork goes out of the picture and data-driven insights replace it. As per a study by Alteryx and RetailWire, only 16% of the respondents perceived themselves an expert in utilizing data, 24% sorted themselves in the ‘Newbie’ category and 60% are still trying to get better at it. Analytics has somewhat penetrated the e-commerce application but what retailers need to do right now is increase retail store analytics utilization for in-store operations as well.
Retail Store Challenges
The store managers need to extract insights from the in-store activity, but the struggles are many. They need to understand and gather information upon is the number of customers coming to the store. They need to know what type of customers are these, are they new or coming again? Now the customer has come in the store, retailers need to know if he/she has an online presence, and if they do what are their online activities. Another set of important data points are, what is the consumer behavior in-store, i.e. what is products they interact with, which areas do the peruse more, what is their complete journey in the story, right from entering to making a purchase or leave without one. It needs to be understood as well that for how long they choose to stay in. And finally, they need access to all this data in an understandable form.
POS Insights
Retailers also need to realize the power of POS data and the kind of crucial insights it can provide. With POS data, managers can see the profit, sales, various trends, consumer basket insights, and more. They can see which products, categories, and suppliers are performing best and which needs to be worked at. Basis this, retailers can predict the next order amount, staff requirement, and much more. This optimizes the store and also ends up in creating a favorable experience for customers too.
Store Traffic Analysis
As a store manager, it is highly critical to measure store traffic. As, monitoring this can help generate more opportunities, increase sales, and make data-driven decisions regarding strategy and other operations. The retailers can measure how their campaigns are working and how efficiently staff is allocated hour-wise by analyzing the traffic data. For example, by finding the peak hours, retailers can increase the resources deployed and reduce them as the traffic decreases. It does not just help the store manager gauge the store performance but also the brands can know which store works best for them and which isn’t giving the number as expected.
Customer Behavior Analysis
With much more data available at the hand, retailers can now unravel the mystery of consumer behavior. For any business, it serves as a core, to understand the customers aptly and deliver exactly what they need. With retail store analytics, managers can tap into this via their purchase and other data. They can track their behavior, retail store journey, and other aspects to do better layouting and merchandising, enhance customer-staff ratio, prevent revenue leakages, and more to make their complete journey more engaging.
Conclusion
Retailers all over the world need to realize the increasing value of data and the necessity of analytics to gather the right insights. Because of course, it not just allows the retailer to optimize the fixed amount of retail space to generate better sales and improve customer experience. Business intelligence takes the guesswork out of the equation and also provides a competitive advantage. As the technology keeps enhancing, the retailers should leverage the developments to drive the best out of available resources.
About the Author
Rohini Mandiwal is a brand manager at Impetus. Impetus is focused on creating big business impact through big data solutions for Fortune 1000 enterprises. The company offers a unique mix of software products, consulting services, data science capabilities, and technology expertise
Featured image: ©Bodnar-Photo
