Out of the shadows: shining a light on what you don’t yet know about your shoppers

SHOPPERTRAK: ACTING ON INSIGHT SERIES

www.shoppertrak.com

“Keep your face always towards the

sunshine, and the shadows will fall behind you,”

said the poet Walt Whitman.

It’s sage advice – unless you work in retail.

Consider for a moment that sales and inventory is your sunshine. Although these traditional data sources tell you a great deal about your performance, they are only indicators of where profit is being made.

What they don’t tell you is where customers are being lost. These are the shoppers that lurk in the shadows, interacting with your stores, that you are ultimately failing to convert.

In this report, we’re going to shine a light on this ‘dark data’ – customer information being lost in the shadows – and outline how you can uncover it, analyse it, and use it to make even more powerful business decisions.

Given today’s aggressive retail climate, exploring the darkness could give you the competitive edge.

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Emerging from the shadows

Essentially, dark data is any information that your business either collects, or has the potential to collect, on a regular basis, but that isn’t considered when making strategic decisions.

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By understanding what opportunities are being missed, and identifying why they are being missed, retailers can take steps to go after these shoppers – and convert them.

Out of the shadows: Shining a light on what you don’t yet know about your customers/visitors

“Dark data can go a long way toward helping organisations know what is useful and what isn’t, and how to make the insights actionable. Yet, surprisingly, many businesses are not yet leveraging their dark data.”IDG Connect

In retail, dark data is the behaviours of customers in the store who don’t convert. Although they have not made your organisation any money, they are still a valuable source of information.

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What data lies in the darkness?

In order to identify new revenue opportunities, retail businesses are continually looking for new ways to capture and analyse customer behaviour. People counting is a commonly established practice, but this information is fairly one-dimensional. Thankfully, there are new ShopperTrak intelligence solutions that are drawing on the capabilities of shoppers’ smartphones, to reveal increasingly sophisticated insights – something we discussed in our previous Acting on Insight report.

These are the solutions that can shine a light on dark data, and give retailers a richer, more detailed picture of how their shoppers behave throughout their purchasing journey.

Rather than talk about this further at a theoretical level, it’s more effective if we bring the concept of dark data to life with a few real scenarios.

PAGE 5 Out of the shadows: Shining a light on what you don’t yet know about your customers/visitors

How long does a customer linger before they convert? Dwell times are a very useful barometer to determine the optimum browsing time, so you know how long your sales associates should be looking to engage.

In addition, dwell times are a good indicator of queue length, particularly if footfall monitoring solutions are based at the point of sale; analysing activity by the checkout will tell you how long a customer is willing to wait before abandoning their purchase.

Closely linked to dwell time, being able to drill down into how each square foot of space is being utilised will help you identify which items are attracting high traffic volumes – and which areas can be better optimised.

It’s also a great opportunity to benchmark customer behaviour between stores with different layouts. For example, if you have a certain display at the back of one store, and the front of the other, which is attracting the most attention? Compare this with sales data and you’ll see which location converts best. Plus, it provides vital data for your category managers, merchandisers, visual merchandisers, store managers and marketing department.

If you have more than one store format, it can also provide interesting comparisons between how people shop across them – and by identifying the IP address of customers’ smartphones, you may even begin to see how individual customers shop differently between stores.

If your marketing department has been tasked with bringing in new customers, this is a powerful way to quantify their efforts.

Using the unique identities of shoppers’ mobile devices, your business can establish when a new visitor comes into the store, and how often a loyal customer returns.

Dwell times Hot spots Repeat custom

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The clock is ticking

As our scenarios show, sophisticated retail intelligence solutions have the power to uncover shopper information in great detail, which, when combined with other key data streams, can reveal new opportunities for revenue growth. However, uncovering dark data is not just about gaining a deeper, broader insight. There is another element that influences how successfully these information streams influence business decision making.

The frequency and speed with which data is delivered is crucial to the tangible difference it makes – the quicker the right people receive it, the sooner they can act on it.

Today, it’s not just head office that should be using statistical analysis to make decisions; retail conditions are constantly evolving, so store managers must have the tools to make responsive decisions throughout the day.

Granular information can now be combined with intra-day insights, to capture – and react to – shopper activity by the hour.

PAGE 7 Out of the shadows: Shining a light on what you don’t yet know about your customers/visitors

The whole truth – and nothing but the truth

Deeper data insights can shine a brighter light on customers, but is there such a thing as too much information?

With such a wealth of sophisticated information available to retailers today, delivered frequently, it’s easy for personnel to become overwhelmed. This is the final element of turning dark data into actionable insight: personalising data streams by individual or department. Key decision makers should be empowered within businesses through information they did not have access to before – for example:

Marketing: Analyse: dwell time, hot spots, repeat custom, conversion In order to: attract new customers/grow customer base, increase loyalty, assess campaign ROI

Asset managers: Analyse: dwell time, workforce schedulingIn order to: increase efficiency, understand activity peaks to see where more staff are needed, and times where the workforce can be scaled back, identify the least disruptive times for stock replenishment

Retail director: Analyse: conversion, dwell time, repeat custom In order to: benchmark sales performance and identify areas for improvement, set targets

Merchandising and category management: Analyse: dwell time, hot spots, conversion In order to: assess whether the product offering is attracting customers,

identify if it is in the right location

Finance director: Analyse: conversion, dwell times, hot spots In order to: benchmark performance between sites and see where revenue can be optimised

Store manager: Analyse: hot spots, conversions, workforce scheduling, repeat custom, bounce rate

In order to: optimise staff rota and location in store, assess impact of marketing and events, increase sales and customer value

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More than 1,200 customers across 64 countries partner with ShopperTrak for long-term retail intelligence.

1,20064

How retailers are already shining a light on customers

PAGE 9Out of the shadows: Shining a light on what you don’t yet know about your customers/visitors

“It’s taken the guesswork out of rostering. We’ve seen significant lifts in conversion

rates year on year.”

Phil Taylor, Michael Hill

“We are able to make critical business

decisions more systematically.”

Weili Liu, Lacoste, China

“Conversion rates have improved by as

much as 4%.”

Matteo Muraro, Calzedonia Group

“We now have a much better handle on visitor/

staffing ratios and store potential.”

Matt Jones, Country Road

Acting on Insight Series (1&2)

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Uncovering amazing customer potential: turning an overwhelming stream of consumer data into actionable business intelligence

All together now: why the future of the store depends on a better understanding of how consumers shop today

Download your copies now at: www.shoppertrak.com

Ready to delve into your dark data?

Retail Profitability, Improved

About ShopperTrak

ShopperTrak is the leading global provider of location-based analytics, offering insights into consumer behavior to improve profitability and effectiveness. Through the use of analytics, ShopperTrak enables clients to better understand their customers, enhance the shopping experience, and ultimately increase traffic, conversion and transaction size.

ShopperTrak is now part of Tyco Retail Solutions, the leader in retail performance and security solutions. Find out more at www.shoppertrak.com

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Contact your local sales representative on info.apac@shoppertrak.com for more information on how we can maximise profitability.

www.shoppertrak.com @ShopperTrak

To find out how ShopperTrak can improve your profits visit www.shoppertrak.com or contact our team in your region on info.apac@shoppertrak.com

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