Data is more available and more easily accessible than ever before. However, if you do not know how to access it, or what to do with it when you get it, it doesn’t help you much. If you have the right data and know how to use it, you can grow your retail business exponentially.
Product Plan
Data can completely drive the products you offer, or do not offer. Knowing what customers want will help determine the inventory you stock. If you know that you are predominately frequented by white females in their 50s to 60s, then you can watch trends for what that group of consumers is buying, and adjust inventory accordingly.
Marketing Strategy
Knowing which ads and which types of ads customers respond to can make a huge difference in your marketing strategy. For example, if you notice that more customers respond to a certain type of model, you can adjust. If you can monitor the search histories of customers in a certain category, you can suggest similar items when those types of customers visit your site.
Diligence
Mistakes in retail are not easy to recover from. The amount and accessibility of data that is currently available means that any mistakes made can be noticed much more quickly. Acting on mistakes and making them right is essential to growth.
Taking advantage of all of the data available costs money—whether you are using it to order different styles of fashion for your store, launching an advertising campaign or hiring more staff.
