Retailers often read predictions about their rapid extinction. Gloomy predictions about the future of traditional retail began to appear almost from the time of the birth of e-commerce, and the pandemic gave such assessments even more fertile ground.
In fact, retail is changing, as is the whole world around it. The modern world consists of data. According to IBM’s estimate, in 2020, each person generated an average of about 1.7 megabytes of data every second.
Big Data will help to use data for the benefit of the business. In short, this concept includes a set of technologies and practices that help to structure and use arrays of “raw” data for a purpose. With the correct analysis of the “white noise” coming from different devices from your users, you can highlight the necessary people and turn them into consumers of your products and services.
A simple example is contextual advertising on Google. Think about it: you googled where to buy a new laptop once, and it offers you different options in pop-up ads in the next few days. It works like this: Google analyzes your search queries and the history of visiting various pages on the Internet and, based on this data, offers advertising from companies that have paid it for a certain number of clicks, setting up an advertising campaign through a special cabinet.
Contents
What data does the retailer need?
Knowing what data will be useful for your purposes and increase the level of sales and the accuracy of offers is important. Usually, retail needs, at a minimum, the following introductions:
- Sales history and buyer behavior. This information will help technology learn more about your customers, their preferences, and exactly how, when, and how often they shop.
- Personal data of customers. Age, gender, social and family status, average income, and any other important social markers. In a generalized form, all this will make it possible to create a portrait of an ordinary buyer of the company’s services or goods.
- Data on demand for goods. Which positions are most needed, and which ones sell worse? Is it the price or the specific product? Do the products in your store correspond to the chosen target audience? Answers to these questions will help improve communication with customers and increase sales.
- Data about the world: information about the weather, currency rates, popular searches for the selected time, the current political situation, and more. A well-worn example: on a rainy day, the demand for taxi services and umbrellas increases; on a hot day – for lemonade. Such parallels can be used for any kind of goods and services, which will help you always keep your finger on the pulse of your target audience and make relevant offers to them.
What opportunities does Big Data open up for retail?
- In marketing, Big Data can create a real revolution: after studying your consumer, you can create the most attractive sales offers that a person simply cannot resist. Also, Big Data helps to find the target audience. By gathering information about search queries, behavioral habits, frequented places, and activities of different groups of people, they can match it with a portrait of your target market and tell you where to look for your potential customers.
- The technology can also be used in logistics. Knowing which areas of the city have the most of your TA, you will be able to immediately correctly distribute the shipment of goods between the company’s branches and stores. Efficient freight transportation reduces costs and increases customer loyalty, who do not have to travel to another part of the city to buy a new pair of shoes just because they are not in the store near the house.
- Effective pricing is also impossible without the use of Big Data. Manually studying the situation on the market, taking into account the exchange rate, the average income of your TA and the seasonality of demand, would be long and hardly effective. Big Data tools will help you calculate the right value for your offers as accurately as possible. Having formed a price that will be beneficial to you and acceptable to buyers, you will get the most profit.
- Big data also helps to analyze and forecast the demand for specific goods and services. Some factors necessarily affect a person’s desire to buy certain goods. By analyzing enough data about the past habits of your consumers, the technology will be able to give a fairly accurate prediction of what you should expect shortly. Knowing this information, you can avoid risks and adjust your business plan to protect your company from threats.
When the amount of collected data grows enormously, and your existing system cannot perform well, Big Data consulting from Geniusee is here to help transfer your data into opportunities — switch from just collecting data to using it to thrive!