4 Big Ways in Which Big Data Can Transform Retail Industry
Imagine a scenario wherein a shopper enters his favorite apparel store. Surveillance cameras mounted on the entrance of the store identifies the shopper and instantly notifies a nearby sales associate. The sales associate than uses an app on his tablet to correlate the shoppers shopping characteristics and obtain a consolidated view. With this information, he than walks up to the shopper, greets him by name, and offers a personalized shopping experience. If you think that this scenario is too far-fetched, think again. Leveraging the power of big data and real-time analytics, brick-and-mortar retail stores can offer not just this, but a variety of other personalized offerings that were not possible before. Some of these include-
Provide Customized Content:
Big data gives retailer unprecedented insights into their customers’ shopping behaviors and preferences. For instance it provides you insights into what types of products and services did your customer view or consume the most in the last few months. Leveraging this understanding you can push personalized content that is bound to click and drive sales.
Carry Out Predictive Marketing:
Big data gives you an opportunity to analyze interactions across multiple channels and decode shopping patterns. Once you manage to accomplish this successfully, you can accurately predict what each customer is going to buy before the customer even realizes that he is ready for that purchase. Thereafter, you can proactively take steps to improve your supply chain process and scale your production up or down as per the demands of the customers.
Implement Dynamic Pricing Modules:
Big data gives you a complete picture of a range of business critical data starting from competitor pricing to regional preference and customer actions. Leveraging these insights you can carefully craft a pricing strategy that can put you ahead of your competition in the industry.
Offer Enhanced User Experience:
Big data has the power to turn customer interactions via social media channels, emails, phone calls and live chats into gold mines of data. It lets you to dig deep, unearth valuable insights to flags issues before they go out of control, and take precautionary actions to quickly resolve issues; thereby helping to stay in top shape in the industry.
The Bottom-line
The old saying, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure,” holds true with regards to the retail industry. Previously the decision-making capabilities in this industry were crippled due the lack of insights. However everything has changed with the advent of big data. Now retailers can seamlessly track the performance of supply chain and other marketing activities in real-time, and make informed decisions.