Big Data and Its Revolution in the Retail Industry
When it comes to operations in the retail technology, data has always played a pivotal role. The analysis of how certain products and their brand promotion fared in terms of sale has been going on since long, much before online shopping came into existence. But with the modern customer embracing digital technology like never before, retailers’ traditional business models are undergoing a rapid disruption. This presents a strong case for integrating big data to deliver tailored retail solutions for elevating the overall retail customer experience.
Below, the various ways are discussed, in which big data has positively affected the retail sector thus helping in enhancing their revenue generation capabilities.
- Easier ways to buy
With the advent of the concept of the Big Data, the retailers have started experimenting with new ways to increase the sales of their brand. They have started getting more creative in nature, thus finding out novel ways to attract customers and ensure topline boost.
Walmart is leading the way in this endeavor. It is building the world’s largest private cloud system that can manage 2.5 petabytes of data every hour (BTW 1 petabyte = 1 million gigabytes!). This is analyzed at the analysis’s hub set up at its Arkansas headquarters.
- Intelligent Pricing
The intelligent concept of the Big Data provides the various owners of commercial organizations. An introspection of how have they carried out the dealing of their manufactured products and also keeping the current pricing of the market trends while arriving at any discounted price for the stuff marketed by them.
Thus, with the right pricing, the investment made in the manufacturing process is obtained back along with the surplus profits that they have earned all the way. This is actually very beneficial for the business owners and they make sure to use it to the maximum of their advantage.
- Product stock
With the help of big data and involving business intelligence and analytics systems, many advantages are enabled. A store can make better purchasing decisions by analyzing the extensively collected industrial data.
They can uncover current market trends, and successfully deliver only what is actually required by the retail customers. Take the case of the novelty cookie popular during Halloween. Walmart found out in real-time that two of their stores didn’t have these wildly popular cookies at all on their store shelves. They could move in time to rectify the inventory oversight and take actions to avoid lost sales.
Also Read about: Transforming the Digital Retail Space
- Personalized Experiences
A big achievement of the present times is that the consumer data is now aptly used to provide a more personalized touch and experience for the customers. Thus, the data that is at work successfully browses through the history of the customer, and analyzes his preferences and tastes. This way, and likewise suggesting him with new but similar options.
Walmart ensures this KRA is met via its acquisition of Inkiru Inc., a Palo Alto based startup dealing in data analytics and predictive intelligence.
- Assessing Marketing Effectiveness
With the help of the trending Big Data concept, companies are now looking at their brands, with a more analytical view, thus utilizing all their personal and promotional aspects. The concept, therefore succeeding tracks down a customer throughout the purchasing process up to the point when he/she makes an online purchase.
- Better conversion rate
Walmart CEO Bill Simon famously said “Our ability to pull data together is unmatched”. It uses sophisticated data mining techniques that take data from point of sales. This helps the company to provide product recommendations based on shopping preferences or sales generated by a particular product or brand.
This ensures target delivery of product assortment on store shelves, where shoppers only see what they actually need or are in huge demand. This elevates the customer experience and drives better conversion rate for the retail behemoth.
To conclude
It is evident that Big Data connects all the various data from all the numerous channels and brings them all on a common social platform. This can be enabled through retail IT solutions, so that retailers can take full advantage of the same and cater to all the needs of the consumers.
Be it launching new products, predictive intelligence, or customized recommendations, the list of advantages delivered by big data to the retail sector is too big to ignore.
Author Bio:
Ashwin Patil is a passionate content marketer who writes on technology, tech trends, tech reviews. Also, I work with people, organizations and the community to deliver solutions which are driven by Big Data, Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Deep Learning & Artificial Intelligence.
