It’s that time of year again!
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner, and it’s the time when retailers and online shops offer their best deals on products- significantly one of the most important dates for the retail industry.During the weeks before, retailers and online shops are getting ready for the increase in both in-store and online sales. As part of the preparation, they need to decide on a few critical questions that will allow them to make the best out of these days.
Part of these questions:
- Which products should we promote?
- What should be the discount on each of the products?
- How will we still benefit and have a positive ROI?
- How much should we spend on the media advertising?
- How can we be prepared in the logistics aspects? (delivery time, resources, employees and sellers in the shops)
- How many users/ visitors are expected to visit our stores/ websites?
- Should we expect the same volumes every day during the weekend of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, or that the volumes are different?
- And many more…
Getting ready for these important days can be much simpler using data analytics–In this article I will try and shed some light on how data analytics can be used by the retailers and online shops to make the best out of the sales during these important days.
5 types of analytics that can be used:
- Tracking historical data and purchase trends to gain insights on the sales and customer behavior through these days- examining growth rates compared to the days before, items viewed, purchased, added and removed from the cart (in e-commerce), activity on desktop vs. mobile, media performance, and more…
- Running predictive analytics models to predict sales and demand during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday days, and to decide on actions that should be taken before and after these days also (to compensate on the discounts):
- Which customers are more likely to purchase?
- What products will be purchased by the different type of customers?
- Which products will produce the highest ROI?
- Which products will have the highest profit margins?
- Analysing social media can help the retailers and online shops in determining inventory and sales, by collecting and understanding better the demand and interests of the customers: analyzing data of product reviews, sharing of posts and photos, as well as postings with hashtags matching specific items or stores. These will allow better predicting the likelihood of certain products to be sold during these days
- Using Real time data– Using data analytics allows real time insights and enables retailers to see immediately trends, technical issues (especially important for online shops), increase in demand for specific products, out of stocks, backlogs, media related issues, and more, and will allow the retailers and online shops to respond quickly and make well-informed decisions, often saving the business from potential disaster
- Using Video analytics– by using video analytics the retailers can gain information on the flow of customers in the stores- peak hours, product placement, cashier issues, etc. This will allow the retailers to plan ahead the resources required, usage of advanced technologies (e.g. self- service cashiers spread in the store), products display and placement planning, etc.
These are just a few examples for how data analytics can be used by retailers and online shops during these so important days for them. There are many more examples for how the data can help the retailers and online shops in making the most out of these days, and not less importantly- how to avoid a disaster.
What is clear is that the retail and e-commerce businesses can be managed and operated better by using data analytics.
At the end- the outcomes of these special dates depend a lot on the intelligent use of data.