How Implementing Retail Analytics Solutions Transforms Your Brick-and-Mortar Store
Top digital transformation trends such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Electronic Point of Sales (EPoS), Intelligent CRM, and others have transcended the retail industry. The impact of digital transformation has allowed U.S. retail sales to register a growth of 0.7% in July 2019. A report of the U.S. Census Department says that retail sales have hit a record of $6 trillion in 2018.
Believe it or not, the retail industry has succeeded in accomplishing sales growth through huge data generation on a day-to-day basis. But you can leverage the benefits of critical data only if you are translating the same into meaningful insights. This keeps you connected with the latest consumer trends.
Getting accurate retail data will help you determine if the customer will visit your store again or not. As consumers expect a more upgraded and personalized shopping experience, it’s time to take a step forward and implement retail analytics solutions in your brick-and-mortar store.
E-commerce stores can get access to relevant shopping data much more easily where they can track down all the important consumer information. Thus, it’s your turn to become smarter with retail analytics.
Retail Analytics is a procedure that offers vital insights and analytical data on inventory, sales, customer demand, supply chain management, and more to drive decisions.
Additionally, you will get to know how the customer reached your store, and how much time he/she spends shopping.
You can present customers with the products that they are searching for and at the same time generate more sales from repeated-item purchases.
According to the 28th Annual Retail Technology Study, 16% of the retail firms have incorporated the retail analytics solution, while another 33% are planning to implement the same. But 100% of retailers agree that technological innovation is the key driving force leading to an increase in user experience.
How Retail Analytics Proves a Boon for Brick-and-Mortar Stores
Combining Retail Analytics with Beacons
You can compile retail analytics technology with in-store beacons for various uses. The beacons are usually employed to track the traffic flow to determine which departments of the store are the busiest.
But how do retail analytics and beacon technology push the retail industry forward?
The answer is that they focus on four important areas, which can influence retail sales. These include-
- Footfall Metrics
- Customer Path Metrics
- Loyalty Metrics
- Engagement Metrics
According to a study, 90% of retail sales occur at the physical stores and that’s the reason why retailers are looking forward to surging the store footfalls.
Footfall Analytics provides all such data point viewings where you can make strategic decisions. It also helps you improve conversion rates and enrich merchandising opportunities. These metrics also provide you with information about unique visitors, new customers, and retention.
The beacon-retail analytics partnership helps in understanding the flow of your customers. This brings heat maps to the scene. Heat maps allow retailers to understand customer movements and note hotspots.
Thus, retail analytics have come to their rescue providing vital data information on the frequency of visits, repeated visits, retention rates, and cross-store visits.
Point of Sale (PoS)
In a changing scenario, you cannot employ Point of Sale to increase sales, but combining the same with retail analytics will allow you to leverage reporting capabilities. Moreover, you can gain a spotlight on core business aspects such as sales trends, basket sizes, and customer counts.
The sales report feature in retail analytics has gained ground. This is a unique feature that allows retailers to do predictive analysis of what is going to happen in the future and plan their strategies accordingly. This, in fact, saves much valuable time as you can place an order for only those items that are trending.
Many business owners agree that PoS in collaboration with retail analytics has allowed them to get an in-depth knowledge of the taste and preferences of their targeted customers. Well, this is the magic of data; you know more than your customers.
Dig into Historical Data with Retail Analytics
With retail analytics, you can easily dig into your history and check out your past sales and inventory data. We all learn from our past mistakes and you can do the same to take insightful actions for the future.
You can get essential data and information on the best selling products of previous years and customers who spend the highest. This again helps in the important decision-making process.
Email Marketing Software
Most of you are aware that email marketing is one of the most significant aspects of digital marketing. Many organizations keep in touch with their customers through emails. They make sure to track the open rates, engagement times, and the number of clicks. The email marketing software sends out all this information
Summing it Up
It is evident from the above information that retail analytics will play an imperative role in shaping the future of the retail industry. Analytics is the forerunner for any business organization, whether they are looking to upsurge their sales, boost profit, or improve customer experience.