Big Data: the Game Changer Retail Industry Can't Afford to Ignore

By Apac CIO Outlook | Thursday, March 19, 2020

The retail sector is undergoing rapid transformation to meet the demands of the changing customer, and the retailers are at the helm of this change. Retailers need to come up with innovative sales strategies that can help them stay abreast in a highly competitive market

Fremont, CA: Business across all sectors is rapidly becoming data-driven. Customers are no longer passive; instead, they are actively participating in the purchase process and are less loyal to brands today. The loyalty toward a brand has been reduced by the experience factor, which is resultant of the changed mindset. The retail sector is undergoing rapid transformation to meet the demands of the changing customer, and the retailers are at the helm of this change. Retailers need to come up with innovative sales strategies that can help them stay abreast in a highly competitive market. Understanding what the customer wants, even before the customer is aware of it, has become the target strategy for every retailer today.

Meeting these demands is an immense task, and big data seems to be aiding retailers in many ways to meet them. Big data can be used to build accurate sales strategies in the retail industry. There is a large number of data available for collection and analysis at stores. The results from these data can be used to size up personalized plans for each customer. These plans can be easily shared across their teams, suppliers, and partners to accelerate their business. Big data enables companies to analyze their relationship with customers and brands and improve them drastically.

Attracting New Customers

Attracting new customers is essential to every business. This can be achieved through proper planning, and big data is the way forward. Big data allows companies to identify their target audience with accuracy and suggests what kind of plans are best suited to rope in potential customers. Informational mining tools as devices for data analysis provide great insight into the first reaction of customers on exposure to a product or an advertisement. Big Data Analytics transforms raw data into indicative of what the audience really needs. This provides greater personalization, loyalty potential, and an increase in the customer base.

Single Access Points

A store can have multiple divisions, and each of these divisions may collect different kinds of data. For instance, a store may have a department of purchasing, marketing, sales, human resources, and others, all of which collect various types of data. These departments must be able to access this data. Big data provides a unique access where different departments can draw from the data collected across all departments. This enables strategies to be prepared in consultation with the data collected from all the departments. The idea is that everyone's work fits, that resources are not wasted and that the impact of promotions and coupons actions, among others, on general sales can be known precisely.

Anticipating Trends

Advanced methods like predictive analysis for the extraction of value from data allow retailers to anticipate purchasing trends and stand out from the competition. This is not only regarding the volume to be stored at a time but also about changes in the habits and preferences of the target audience. This way, retailers can not only supply a variety of products before their competitors but also cater to the needs of the public.