How Brick-and-Mortar Can Fight Back With Data

How Brick-and-Mortar Can Fight Back With Data
Jan 27, 2019

We are always there: pajamas, too early (or late!) for stores to be open, even if they are, traffic and crowds may be unpleasant. Shopping through the warm blue light of a computer or mobile phone seems easier. After all, price matching is as simple as switching between browser tabs, and the product may be guaranteed to arrive in two days, perhaps faster.


This is the retail reality established by the digital world. Online marketers and direct-to-consumer brands are defining this ecosystem and are leaning toward the data-driven benefits it presents. They told their customers, "Whatever you want, we can give you a few clicks."


In this new paradigm, how do physical retailers compete? How do they get more customers through their doors and deal with the influx of competition brought about by digitalization?


A Unique Advantage

First, thinking from multiple sources to omnichannel needs to mature. As the new research at Cuebiq and Retail Ascendant points out, brick-and-mortar retailers have the opportunity to better leverage the insights and data collected by the online world to compete with online leaders.


Take the passenger flow as an example. In a survey conducted by retail executives in June/July 2018, traffic measurement affected a variety of business decisions, including classification and sales (79%), media and marketing decisions (71%), and omnichannel Optimization (57%). In contrast, using location intelligence for store-by-store metrics (29%), shopper marketing (21%) and customer conquest (14%) are the lowest use cases.


These results indicate that footprints are still limited to specific channel measures, with a focus on broad optimization of marketing and marketing. But why is this so limited? Insights gathered from data such as footsteps are likely to increase traffic to specific stores, deepen understanding of customer behavior, and enable retailers to more effectively meet consumer demand.


Growing From Tradition

Retail customers are multifaceted. Therefore, the marketing method to achieve them must also be like this. Many people recognize this, but still rely on traditional methods of measuring engagement. According to our research, retailers continue to evaluate in-store traffic through demographics (53%) and using credit card or loyalty programs. Other most common methods are position analysis (33%), in-store sensors (33%) and mobile devices (27%).


What is advantageous here is that the data indicates that retailers are starting to adopt new technologies. Even if retailers may adopt some “old school” methods, they still believe that footwork measurement is a priority. In fact, 38% of respondents believe that it is the three major sources of analysis, and 23% of respondents believe that it is increasingly important.


Moving Forward Fast

Building a digital foundation to compete with omnichannel leaders like Amazon.com means a different way of thinking. The first step for retailers is to invest in better offline analysis. Analysts and data scientists have become retailer's bets because they can effectively evaluate offline models in conjunction with online work. Building a model to understand omnichannel impacts and trade-offs will help make the company more successful.


In addition, retailers should learn more from their competitors' traffic patterns. Location analysis enables a more rigorous pattern analysis of the footsteps, allowing them to measure where people are going in the store. This competitive Intel has deepened consumer understanding of time and money - and it's easier to send targeted messages to potential customers.


Beacons can also be implemented with location data as they provide retailers with greater depth of measurement and better access to associations. These technologies go beyond the limits of today's offline traffic measurement, providing massive amounts of data from the web, mobile and other digital channels.


New Age of Engagement

The numbers don't go away, the data only grows, and it gets even stronger for those who can use it. This is why it is important to set standards to face current insights.


First, create internal performance metrics within and across channels through cross-channel attribution. When measured and motivated together, this can encourage internal teams to encourage cross-line traffic to online and offline attributes. It also ensures that major fixed investments in physical retail are optimized and recognized to achieve their contributions.


In addition, reward consumers are involved and purchased across channels. Recognizing when loyal online shoppers access stores or traditional physical customers online purchases help to strengthen relationships. Insights about these omnichannel customers can help optimize expensive marketing and marketing decisions, and allow for progressive, non-conflicting or non-personal messages and offers.


All customers make decisions based on perceived value. So if someone is wearing pajamas at home and adding items to their digital shopping cart, then why? When the data provides an answer, be prepared to take action on it.

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