Using Retail Data Analytics in an Omni-Channel Sales Strategy
The recent upheaval of brick-and-mortar retail has caused many people to completely rethink what it takes to be successful in the modern business world. Many legacy companies have lost their edge, or are on the verge of going out of business, due to an inability to react to changing times. Of course, there’s still a need for physical retail. Even the king of online sales, Amazon, is opening brick-and-mortar stores. So how can companies take advantage of the benefits of both in-person and online sales? One approach is using retail data analytics in an omni-channel sales strategy.
What Is Omni-Channel Sales?
You might not be totally familiar with the terminology of omni-channel sales. After all, it has become much more prevalent to the business world over the past few years. Essentially, the purpose of omni-channel sales is to consolidate all types of sales into one seamless approach. This means organizations need to integrate physical, online, and other modes of sales into one. Customers will be peeved if they need to continually go back to square one if they switch between modes. Retailers need to consider this, and find ways to foster continuity among their sales platforms.
Track Profitability of Each Channel
The underlying motive of most businesses is to make money. Even if your aims are benevolent, you still want your organization to turn a profit so that revenue can be reallocated to others. The obvious starting point for using retail data analytics in omni-channel sales is to track the profitability of each channel. If your website is generating 90 percent of your profits but your stores are sucking up half of your operating capital—you might want to consider some structural changes. Knowing the numbers behind each channel allows business owners to make more intelligent decisions.
Better Understand Relationship between Channels
Of course, part of the beauty of omni-channel sales is that the various components can work together. Maybe you offer in-store pickup for online sales. Or perhaps, you allow people shop in the store, then receive their purchase by delivery. No matter your business plan, you need to have a firm understanding of how your sales channels interact with one another.
Retail data analytics can identify hidden patterns in consumer behaviors that can illuminate massively important insights. Uncovering these secrets is the key to getting the most out of your omni-channel sales strategy.
Identify Potential Areas of Growth
How do you know whether it makes more sense to invest excess time and resources in project A or project B? You must look at the numbers, of course. In the past, organizations often had to hope for the best when making major decisions regarding changes to operations. They still had access to numbers, but not anywhere near the level of deep analysis afforded to us today.
Developments in artificial intelligence let business owners see potential in places that previously would have been unimaginable.
Use Resources More Efficiently
Your resources are the lifeblood of your business. Using money, time, and materials inefficiently will drag your company down, and cause you to be overtaken by the competition. The corporate world of today is far too fierce to accept waste as a part of operations. Retail data analytics can sniff out any points of useless waste inherent within your omni-channel sales approach. Eliminating redundancies or conversion killers can be the thing that puts you a step ahead of the rest of the field.
There’s no excuse in today’s world for neglecting to use data in your business plan. Your competitors aren’t going to wait around for you to get with the program. They all want to take away your sales. Implement retail data analytics into your omni-channel sales approach to stay on top of your game.