WHY RETAILERS SHOULD BE TAPPING INTO CLOUD ANALYTICS TO UNDERSTAND BUYING HABITS
For some time now, the habits of buyers have been shifting, with many retail insight experts predicting the downfall of the traditional brick and mortar shopping experience in favour of the digital world.
The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a catalyst for this change, accelerating its impact a number of years. Because of this many retailers have turned to their e-commerce stores as a means to survive and grow.
With the state of the economy still uncertain, and local lockdowns remaining a lingering threat, it is yet unknown what the full economic impact of lockdown and post-lockdown will mean for retailers, and shoppers’ habits. In order to begin the recovery process though, it’s crucial for businesses to get under the skin of their customers; to understand what makes them tick – and using cloud analytics can help retail businesses to extract insights from mass datasets that help them to better understand their customers’ habits.
Don’t rely on guesswork
Delving into cloud analytics to uncover the science behind customer buying habits has never been more important. Relying on retail analytics and hard data rather than guesswork, enables you to make smarter decisions toward higher profits and improved customer satisfaction. The data can help to identify trends, uncover the psychology that drives buying habits and highlight just what tempts shoppers to buy your products.
Indeed the psychology of shoppers will have changed significantly with the current pandemic, with consumers spending less time leisurely browsing and instead, shopping with intent and purpose. Retailers will need to find out just how they can capture the attention of this ‘new shopper’ quickly, and analytics should be able to shed some light on these changes.
Using the cloud to organise and collect your data in one place gives you a distinct advantage in getting the most from your analytics. The more accurate your data is, the more reliable your insights will be.
Applying analytics is not only beneficial for increasing footfall and building a relationship with your customers, it can play a crucial role in strategic forward-planning for retail owners. For example, using data on trends to influence purchase decisions, so that your store meets customer demand. Other examples might include influencing your marketing and promotional decisions based on how shoppers have historically reacted to POS systems.
Understanding the underlying reasons behind shopper experience will enable a business to better focus spend elsewhere, ultimately helping to aid the recovery process. Valuable data insights will help you to answer important questions such as ‘what was our best-seller last month or even last week?’, ‘who are the customers that spend the most?’ and ‘which suppliers were most popular with our shoppers?’.
The changing landscape
The landscape of retail has changed drastically in the last five months, with the high-street in particular taking a huge financial hit as working from home restrictions were put in place, meaning town and city centres which so heavily rely on footfall, became almost like ghost towns.
While many shutters remain closed across the country, it has become abundantly clear that in order to recover – and eventually thrive again – over the coming months, retailers cannot afford to ignore data.
Business leaders should invest in cloud analytics to collect and monitor data, and use it wisely in order to feed positive, effective actions. By harnessing analytics, you will be able to ensure your ecommerce store is flexible and tailored to the changing needs of your customer base.
Contact CLOUDWRXS to find out how the team can create tailored business analytics for your business to unlock insights, that help you to keep up with your customers habits: info@cloudwrxs.com