The Potential of Big Data to Transform your Ecommerce Operations

Mar 1, 2017
big data to transform ecommerce operations

Way back in early 2000s, Amazon realized that they possessed huge volumes of user data, that could be utilized in an innovative manner to provide exceptional customer service. This led to the evolution of Big Data, that took Amazon’s business to a whole new level in comparison to its counterparts. This revolutionary approach ushered in promises of improved relationship with clientele, so much so that Amazon was sure to remain their top priority whenever they decided to make future investments.

Let us take up an example to cite how  this could be achieved. Once, John Kindle encountered some problems, for which he had to call up Amazon to place a service request. Surprisingly, his call was respond in less than 20 seconds time and he did not even have to provide his name and address to the agent. There was an usual level of personal touch and warmth, that made the overall experience extremely pleasant. Moreover, the query got resolved in just a couple of minutes. It was evident that Amazon had done significant homework in consolidating all data concerning John and this call was taken up as a welcome opportunity to create a brand defining moment for the company. In addition, this effort could successfully restore confidence towards customer support services in John’s mind, and many more to come.

Soon after, other eCommerce companies started following example to drive their productivity and fuel their sales:

CVS, which the second biggest online pharmacy in U.S.A, implemented Big Data analysis to provide some critical insight into their ongoing sales performance. They discovered that one-third of their clients had discontinued their purchase of prescribed medicines, in a span of one month and nearly half of the remaining number, gave it up in a year’s time. Based on these findings, the company took up a new initiative to send auto generated text and email reminders to people, so that they could be proactively informed to refill their prescriptions at the earliest.

Dollar General, which is a US based online retailer of a wide variety of products, arrived at a conclusion that if their suppliers were encouraged to enter into an alliance to promote each other’s products, it would help them to mutually boost their sales. This is where the company decided to tap the power of Big Data to make it possible for suppliers to examine real-time operational and retail data. Now, the suppliers could easily make out which other items their customers were buying alongside their own products. This enlightenment allowed them to strike cross-promotional deals with their counterparts, with an intention to enhance sales figures of both parties.

Similarly, the online fashion giant Macy’s, harnessed the power of Big Data to sort different product ranges for particular segments of customers. By analyzing a host of contributing factors and correlating them with SKU data, the company optimized the distribution of products to specific customer groups in distinct locations across the country.

From the examples given above, it is pretty evident that eCommerce ventures should seriously indulge in Big Data to enrich their competitiveness and value in the virtual landscape. This versatile technology can prove very useful in collecting detailed and accurate information, use it for taking better informed management decisions, innovating with concepts and products, customizing products with enhanced precision, generating greater revenues and building lasting relationships with clients.

In spite of the promising benefits of Big Data, many companies get overwhelmed with the very thought of implementing this new technology. The real challenge lies in convincing yourself that Big Data isn’t too big for your organization to execute. Remember that Big Data is there to offer much beyond data correlation and analysis. It goes more into developing ways by which you can use the available information to bring your vision and acumen to the forefront. Hence if you are enterprising, Big Data can help you bring about a remarkable transformation in your eCommerce start-up.

Why Choose us for Big Data Analytics

With its 45 global delivery centers, SmartCoders is committed to using years of acquired knowledge and expertise in providing data driven intelligence to the marketplace. We can assist in managing and presenting your data in a manner that can enable you to gauge consumer demands and take strategic decisions to bring your business on to the next level. Our pool of certified professionals have first-hand experience in leveraging data science methodologies to encounter challenges in implementation of  Big Data solutions, at low cost.

We use the Hadoop Ecosystem technologies and NOSQL databases to deliver a range of services in this platform, which include- advisory services, roadmap services, architecture overview, Big Data implementation and protection.