What is retail analytics?
Retail analytics is the process of tracking business data, such as inventory levels, consumer behavior, sales numbers, and more, to make more informed, strategic decisions. This includes providing insights to understand and optimize the retail business’s supply chain, consumer behavior, sales trends, operational processes, and overall performance. With today’s high customer expectations for retail, companies must meet those rising needs with personalized omnichannel offers, efficient processes, and quick adjustments to upcoming trends—all of which require retail analytics.
Why is retail analytics so important?
Retailers need to be able to accurately target and anticipate customer needs in order to offer the right products at the right price at the right time—and they need analytics to do that. Analytics can help retailers make the right marketing decisions, improve their business processes, and deliver better overall customer experiences by uncovering areas for improvement and optimization
How can retailers use analytics?
There are several areas of the retail business that can benefit from analytics. First, retail analytics can be used to provide a comprehensive view of the business and assess the efficiency of business processes. For example, a retailer can use predictive analytics to adjust inventory based on customer purchasing trends and reduce waste and associated costs.
Secondly, retail analytics can greatly improve marketing tactics. It can help target customers by determining the ideal customer based on data gathered on current and past customers’ location, age, preferences, purchasing patterns, and other key factors. Personalized marketing in the retail industry is becoming more commonplace and requires a deep understanding of individual customer preferences. With retail analytics, companies can develop strategies focused on specific customers and therefore increase success for such marketing tactics.
Finally, retail analytics can be used to predict consumer needs and business improvements to gain a competitive advantage. Analyzing sales data can help retailers identify emerging trends and anticipate customer needs.
