WHAT IS RETAIL ANALYTICS AND WHAT IS THE NEED OF RETAIL ANALYTICS FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

WHAT IS RETAIL ANALYTICS AND WHAT IS THE NEED OF RETAIL ANALYTICS FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

The business marketplace has now become a data-driven environment where data empowers business leaders to make crucial business decisions. Nearly every enterprise across the globe needs data to streamline their marketing strategies and enhance global reach. Businesses worldwide are embracing the strength of data analytics. Nowadays, big data analytics is driving several business operations and reshaping industries as per the current trends. As per Statista, the annual revenue generated from the big data would be expected to reach $274.3 Billion in 2022. The big data analytics market is all set to reach $103 Billion by the year 2023.

The retail industry is among the most widespread and dynamic industries across the globe. But why do retailers need analytics? Being considered as a customer-centric industry and to stay ahead in this competitive market, retailers are always under tremendous pressure to serve their customers in a better manner. To match consumers’ expectations and demands, retailers need analytics to understand business information and gain valuable insights from the data to make further business decisions.

What is Retail Analytics?

Retail Analytics is the process of providing valuable data on inventory levels, supply chain movement, consumer demands, sales and much more that can be utilized for a variety of applications. It is a process of studying retail business information and providing actionable insights on critical aspects of retail business. With the help of data analytics, retailers can get insights into factors such as traffic counting, supply chain, retail conversion rates, customer demands, and more.

Retail analytics allow retailers to study consumer behavior and understand their buying patterns. Consumer behavior insights coming from the data-driven environment enable retailers to understand the buying patterns of their customers and also offer a solution that will help you improve sales and retain customers. Retail analytics can be best benefitted to e-commerce organizations, as they have a huge amount of consumer data such as customers’ cart items, most searched items, their choices, and preferences. These details are easily accessible by the retailers and can be further utilized by the market leaders to design and implement business strategies.

To make the most of retail analytics, retailers face significant hurdles before implementing it to their business. Here’s a list of hurdles to what retailers need to deal with:

  • Focus on customer relationship: To begin with, it is really necessary to build trust with your customers in the very first place. It is very important to ensure your customers that their data will be safe and will not benefit any other in any manner.
  • Ensure that you are collecting the right data: When implementing data analytics, data plays a significant role in the entire process. The data gathered from the customer should be accurate for the analytics to work out.
  • Ensure data security and compliance: Many customers are in doubt while entering their details such as address, card details, personal details, etc. The fear of data breach is legit and can not only harm your customers but also severely affect your business. As an enterprise, it is your responsibility to protect your customers’ details.
  • On-time adoption of advanced technology: Maintenance is one important thing that businesses usually cannot see coming their way while implementing the utilization of big data. Keep updating your devices and ensure on-time adoption of advanced technology to secure data.
  • Driving right insights: Big data analytics can help you extract, transform, and load the data to reveal consumer patterns and give valuable insights. In retail industry, trends and patterns of consumers keep changing each passing day. The insights-driven by retail analytics should be utilized and implemented carefully to take the necessary steps to make use of that information.

Also Read: Where is Retail Analytics Heading?

These hurdles can be fixed when the understanding of big data utilization is combined with the trends and patterns of retail industry. If used appropriately, retail analytics can bring your business to new heights of success and satisfied customer experience. Here are the list benefits retail analytics can provide to your business:

  • Improved marketing ROI: With the help of retail analytics, businesses can measure their return of investment across several aspects of business management. As per the ROI, a business can plan their future campaigns to attract new consumers and streamline marketing initiatives.
  • Customer behavior insights: Leveraging retail analytics has the most important advantage in retail industry, i.e. knowing your consumer behavior and their buying patterns. Retail analytics offer tangible and actionable insights into customer behavior.
  • Improved decision-making: Retail analytics can help you improvise your marketing decisions substantially. You can plan and implement new strategies based on data-driven strategies.
  • Marketing strategies: With the help of actionable and valuable insights driven from retail analytics, marketers can strategize their marketing activities and campaigns efficiently based on consumer behavior.

In the retail world, where margins are thin, retail analytics can help you fill the gaps between your marketing strategies.

Bonnie Baldwin