Business intelligence (BI) is a broad term, encompassing data mining, process analysis, descriptive analytics, performance benchmarking, and much more. Collecting and analyzing business intelligence, using business intelligence software or professional business intelligence analysts, companies can make informed business decisions by emphasizing on the valuable insights and data provided by consumers. To achieve smooth business intelligence, a technology-driven process is required for collecting, storing, and managing data to make it readily accessible to be analyzed.
At the peak of booming eCommerce, customers worldwide are keen to explore multiple online retailing options than ever before. Retail has become more fast-paced and competitive, dealing with customers’ information daily, especially during the global pandemic. To keep everything on track, the incorporation of BI into eCommerce has proven to be a game-changer. It can easily track users’ interactions with eCommerce stores, and enhance the users’ shopping and service experience by using that information.
- What Business Intelligence Technologies Can Do for Retail
- Identifying Customers’ Origin
- Tracking Customers’ Behaviours & Spending Patterns
- Delivering Personalized Shopping Experiences
- Providing Transparency to Business Operations
- Targeting & Measuring Marketing Campaigns’ Effectiveness
- Understanding Customers’ Needs
- Monitoring Social Media Behavior
- Key Players Tapping into Retail Business Intelligence Services
- Amazon
- Starbucks
- Lowe’s
- Conclusion
What Business Intelligence Technologies Can Do for Retail
To make your retail business highly effective and profitable, focusing on data points is crucial. This is because of retail’s specialty in managing a vast quantity of data, starting from supplier data to inventory details and customers’ buying patterns. These data points generate actionable insights through the graphical representation of customer trends. Using these BI data, retailers may efficiently target their potential customers through personalization.
Let’s take a look at how effectively BI is transforming retail.
Identifying Customers’ Origin:
With the help of BI, it has been easier for businesses to identify their customers’ ability in finding products and websites through referrals or email campaigns, other than just finding their physical locations (states, cities, etc.).
Tracking Customers’ Behaviours & Spending Patterns:
Focusing on customer loyalty programs has proven to be an effective way to track customers’ spending patterns and behavior in retailers. Research shows that members of customer loyalty programs spend up to 18% more than regular customers. Thus, this emerges as a crucial way to retain customers, along with producing user-generated content and product reviews.
Delivering Personalized Shopping Experiences:
Providing a personalized experience to consumers has always been efficient in terms of increasing loyalty and, thus, revenue.
Providing Transparency to Business Operations:
Providing valuable insights to different parts of the purchasing experience, business intelligence ensures high transparency in retailers’ business operations, starting from organizing & packaging, all the way to product delivery.
Targeting & Measuring Marketing Campaigns’ Effectiveness:
Through business intelligence, retailers can easily detect whether their marketing campaigns are working and consumers are actively opening emails, clicking on links, etc.
Understanding Customers’ Needs:
Businesses that intend to build relationships with their customers by truly understanding their needs and pain points are the most successful ones. With BI, keeping track of customer interaction and personalized engagement has been easier than before, and thus, many industries nowadays are incorporating these strategies for customer retention and growth.
Monitoring Social Media Behavior:
Retail BI allows companies to analyze social media sentiment, in order to track metrics and observe how their products are scored. Moreover, merchandisers can further utilize such information to analyze the products’, stores’, and brands’ performance and sales.
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Key Players Tapping into Retail Business Intelligence Services
Amazon:
From inventory allocation among warehouses to optimization of shipping routes, BI tools influence almost every step of Amazon’s supply process. Furthermore, the company relies on business intelligence to provide personalized product recommendations, market products, and make different logistical business decisions. Also, in-depth data analysis helps in the smooth functioning of Amazon’s massive supply chain.
Starbucks:
Leveraging the retail BI software, Starbucks predicts what their customers are interested in, when it comes to providing offers. This system helps Starbucks in frequently drawing their existing customers into the stores, and thus, increases their sales volume.
Lowe’s:
This home improvement company utilizes BI for optimizing its supply chain, analyzing products to detect potential frauds, and solving problems. Moreover, they use business intelligence to delve deep into the insights for better product assortment as well as staffing at specific store locations.
Closing Thoughts
In a time, when brick and mortar retail is struggling to survive, in the face of the staunch rise of e-commerce, data-driven, customer-focused, personalized services can prove to be the breath of oxygen that Retail requires. There are multiple organizations that have made business intelligence software, technologies, and services accessible to smaller to mid-size retail businesses. Retail businesses must embrace these technologies if they have to remain in competition.
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