Why Retail Business Analytics Should Be a Part of Your Decision-Making Formula

March 16, 2018

In today’s technology-driven retail environment, more raw data about sales and customer behavior is available than ever before. A recent survey of nearly 350 retailers and brand manufacturers, conducted by Alteryx and RetailWire, revealed that 81% of respondents gather data to glean shopper insights, and 76% say such insights are crucial to their organizational performance. Yet, only 16% consider themselves to be expert-level users of that data.

Learning how to properly collect and analyze data will lead to streamlined workflows, increased productivity, and higher profits. If you’re not taking full advantage of the information available to you, you’re potentially leaving money on the table and losing a competitive edge. Using retail business analytics can help you succeed in several ways:

Predict Sales Success

Your point of sale (POS) system can provide a wealth of information in addition to processing transactions. Sales reports can help you identify which products are selling well (or not), so you can make informed decisions about inventory management and pricing strategies. Retail business analytics can also reveal buying patterns, such as which time of day or year yields the highest sales of particular items. This intelligence can also assist with staffing decisions.

Increase Customer Engagement

Customers develop loyalty to retailers they feel understand their needs, recognize them as individuals, and value their business. With a customer relationship management (CRM) solution, you can communicate with your customers more easily than ever before. Use retail business analytics on your CRM data to gain valuable insights about your customers that can then be acted on to enhance the customer experience and boost sales. You can make product recommendations based on an individual’s past buying history or offer customized discounts and promotions. You can also track information about your email communications with consumers, such as which messages get opened and when, so you can improve their effectiveness.

Gain Omnichannel Insights

To get the most leverage out of retail business analytics, don’t look at just one factor but instead consider how different metrics relate to each other in order to get a holistic picture of your business. That includes combining online and offline data to discover trends that you could miss if data is siloed. Today’s shoppers use multiple channels when making purchases. It’s helpful to know, for example, if customers are browsing items online and then coming into a store to buy, or vice versa.

Include Human Insights

Retail business analytics can harness data to help make business decisions, but don’t discount what experience has taught you and your sales team. Crunching the numbers can show you trends that you might have missed or not thought of; but consulting with your frontline staff can help you decide how to act on those trends or solve problems.

Technology can help you mine raw data into actionable intelligence that will be invaluable to your business decision-making process. With the right retail business analytic tools in place, you can increase your profits while growing customer engagement. Let TallySoft help you implement a strategy for collecting and harnessing data that will give you real results.