In an effort to compete with eCommerce, retailers are increasingly turning to big data and in-store analytics to better understand what’s going on in their stores. Today, in our 2nd part of “Retail Week Series”, we talk about the importance of Big Data Analytics in a Retail business. It would be of immense help to all retailers, eCommerce firms, technology players and budding entrepreneurs in ingraining fundamentals and modern strategies of running a successful Retail business.

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Learn the Role of Big Data in
Retail Industry
In an effort to compete with eCommerce, retailers are increasingly
turning to big data and in-store analytics to better understand what’s
going on in their stores. Today, in our 2nd part of “Retail Week
Series”, we talk about the importance of Big Data Analytics in a Retail
business. It would be of immense help to all retailers, eCommerce firms,
technology players and budding entrepreneurs in ingraining
fundamentals and modern strategies of running a successful Retail
business.
The massive scope of opportunity offered by the retail industry has led
to a highly competitive market that often operates on razor-thin margins.
This is where the big data and data analytics tools come into the picture.

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Relying on advanced pattern identification algorithms and real-time
information processing, data analytics has been empowering businesses
across market segments with the tools they require to survive and
succeed.
Given the disruptive impact that data analytics can have on both offline
and online retail businesses, here are a few big data trends that are
actively revolutionizing the way the retail industry operates.
 Big Data/Predictive analytics enables retailers to take prompt
actions for making decisions on tracking, stocking and
replenishing SKUs on a regular basis. By accurate tracking,
retailers can map trends that are prevailing in the market. Putting
this information against the number of visitors to a store shows
whether or not this item is a “must have”, analytics help retailers to
have the right product. Big Data can also help measure operational
efficiencies by mapping inventory by store.
 Many retailers have adopted an omnichannel marketing strategy
that combines traditional, digital and mobile channels. While
retailers often collect information such as in-store footfalls and
web visits, many choose to augment their knowledge stores with
data from third parties in order to identify users and predict their
purchasing decisions. Did the same user who is now in store
previously visit the website as well, and why was the decision
made to purchase an item in a store instead of buying it online?
Big data has been answering these questions for retail businesses to
develop more comprehensive user profiles, predict choice patterns

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and tailor their offerings to better suit their prospective consumer
base.
 Accurate analysis of in-store impacts allow marketers to focus on
effective marketing campaigns that yield desired results. By
utilizing the in-store sales funnel, marketers can devise the best
opportunities that bring the highest ROI from their marketing
efforts.
 Big Data allows retailers to feed their ideas, including cut, color
and pricing, to an algorithm that uses sentiment analysis to predict
if the ideas will be a hit amongst consumers or not.
 The retail industry, owing to its massive size, can be slow to adapt
to market changes. Through technological enablement, big data
services have been actively allowing businesses to respond to the
changing market dynamics in real-time and leads to an
optimization of business operations.
 Data analytics also lets businesses identify a change in consumer
demand patterns and to gauge if the changes in consumer
behaviours are long-term or short-term. This predictive approach
leads to better price adjustments to counter the flagging demands
leading to a substantial increase in revenue.
So, what have we learnt?
The ultimate goal of any data analytic tool is to enable the best business
decisions by compiling and presenting results from the most relevant
metrics to any business owner. However, different retail businesses will
have different requirements. The requirements of a retail perfume

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business, which has high acquisition and low retention that operates
chiefly on seasonal demands, will greatly vary from that of a low
acquisition, high retention business such as a grocery store that caters to
day-to-day necessities.