To compete with the rise of online shopping, physical retailers need to harness data in the same way as their eCommerce rivals. Utilising retail analytics and hard data rather than guesswork can enable you to make smarter decisions. Here are some retail analytics best practices that can help stores to achieve success.
How Can Retail Outlets Get More From Their Data?
1. Value the Data You Have Right Now
Before you begin looking at new data avenues, start with the data you have already. Offline and online data, such as website analytics and average daily sales, are relatively simple to retrieve but can be invaluable down the road.
2. Establish Clear Objectives That Align With Business Strategies
It’s best practice to start by creating a list of questions that your business needs to answer when it comes to data collection. From there, you’ll know what data is essential to success and what isn’t. While some retailers are still learning how to best collect customer data, others possess it but are unsure what to do next.
You’ll have the competitive edge if you can tick both of these boxes.
3. Leverage Technology in Your Retail Store
Deployed strategically, technology can provide customers with a frictionless shopping experience.
When consumers go to a shopping centre or high street, they expect to be able to connect to a public WiFi network. This is great when it comes to delighting the customer and keeping them shopping for longer. But to really get the most from your WiFi, choose a network that features intelligent analytics tools and can integrate with your loyalty database.
WiFi networks that integrate with other aspects of your business are especially useful because they allow you to collate valuable visitor data all in one unified place. Contactless payments, omnichannel experiences and IoT technology provide their own sets of data. However, when integrated, you’ll only need to login to one dashboard to have a holistic view of them all. This complete view is beneficial for businesses that rely on several tools and tech for data insights.
By measuring footfall, visitor behaviour, dwell times and user demographics with the technology available to you, you’ll have a better understanding of your customers. This information can shape future marketing campaigns and infrastructure improvements to ensure your stores are frequented by shoppers.
Analytics Can Help You Reveal More About Your Customers and Store
Today’s customers are more empowered and connected than ever before. Historically, customer information had been limited to demographic data collected during sales transactions.
However, when you follow the best practices for retail analytics, you can:
- Identify the problems your customers are facing.
- Test different promotional tactics to find the most effective.
- Enhance customer loyalty and retention.
- Elevate everyday business management.
- Influence decision-making on stock, staff and selling tactics.
- Optimise in-store experiences.
- Accurately analyse the behaviour of your consumers.
Set against a backdrop of heightened economic uncertainty, it’s clear the very fundamentals of the retail sector need to shift. In response to these challenges, more and more retailers are turning to data and analytics to make better business decisions and shape future marketing campaigns.
Behavioural analytics from intelligent WiFi can have a positive impact across the entire retail business strategy. The brands that have access to high-quality data (and know how to use it) are the ones that will continue to deliver unrivalled value to their customers.
However, analytics is just one of the ways that retailers can improve customer experience and thrive in the ever-changing retail space. Staying relevant alongside eCommerce efforts is a subject we’ve explored in one of our latest guides.
Ready to Improve Your Customers’ Retail Experience?
It’s more important than ever for physical retailers to focus their efforts on improving their customers’ experience. Neglect this and they’re likely to take their business to digital alternatives.
We’ve created a free guide that includes some of the most effective ways that retailers can enhance the customer experience and stay relevant. Innovative technologies are needed to meet evolving customer demands in 2020 and our guide considers some of the ones we expect to see in the near future.
For your copy of the guide, click on the link below and see how you can drive customer engagement - both instore and online.
About the author
Rebecca O'Donovan
Rebecca is the Marketing Director. She's worked for SPARK TSL since 2012. She is responsible for high level marketing strategy focusing on lead generation and aiding the vision of the business; to ensure that no patient has to pay for entertainment.
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