The Benefits of Location Analytics Solutions for Retail Businesses

Data analysis is an integral part of understanding trends in the market. For a retail business, this is the one way to help you gain business intelligence and drive optimization strategies, by better understanding your customer behavior.

In this article you will learn how location analytics can help you, as a retailer, gain actionable insights to improve customer experience, drive operational efficiency and boost your business.

A Brief Introduction to Location Analytics

Location analytics is adding a geographical and time layer in the data that is collected on customer behavior. It helps businesses get a more accurate overview of customer behavioral patterns and trends overtime.

As a way to collect location analytics data, retailers can choose to use one or multiple sources: beacons, Wi-Fi, and more recently cameras, are some of them.

What Kind of Data Can Retailers Extract from Location Analytics?

Using physical analytics helps retailers increase business intelligence and reveal valuable information.

Depending on the source technology used, retailers can collect different kinds of data. Some of the information collected from location analytics solutions include the buying patterns, visited areas, and overtime trends. Some technologies can also show how long users spend on average in a specific area and what are the most attractive points within a store, based on average foot traffic and dwell time.

For instance, WiFi analytics can show the WiFi hotspots people log onto the most, how long they stay connected, how they move around the location, or how often they come back. In some cases, based on the authentication method, it can also provide additional customer demographics data.

With camera analytics, there is also the possibility of getting more accurate data on the customers behavior. Advanced camera technologies, such as the one provided by the Meraki MV Sense cameras, can help businesses track onsite traffic, identify visitor demographics, define path patterns, and much more.

All these tools, used individually or combined, can help retailers better understand their customers and optimize the business processes to increase their sales.

Five Benefits of Location Analytics Solutions for Retail Businesses

If a person wants to run a competitive and successful business, then there are things they will need to keep in mind. One will have to go beyond opening a shop and stocking it up.

Understanding their buyers’ onsite behavior is the only way businesses can reach out to their potential clients and optimize their journey to purchase.

In using location analytics, retailers can get more value in their business it can provide the following benefits:

1. Learn more about the customer journey

With location intelligence, retailers are in a position to analyze their potential customers’ journey.

By using WiFi and camera analytics they can get to know more about their average customer demographics, onsite behavioral patterns and points of interest.

They can also know whether they tend to shop alone or accompanied, how much time they usually spend in store, or if they tend to linger or go straight to the point.

Understanding this data can help retailers design more tailored strategies to improve the customer experience, increase engagement, and generate loyalty over time.

2. Know where to optimize and drive operational efficiency

With the analysis received, retailers can know how much traffic their stores are receiving, and cross-check that data with the number of sales and revenue it resulted in.

Those stores receiving a high level of traffic but which conversion rate remains low, may consider investing their efforts in optimizing their in-store experience for sales.

On the contrary, those stores experiencing a high conversion rate, may opt to increase their visibility to generate more traffic.

The traffic path analysis can also shed some light on the quality of the store design and distribution, helping businesses identify blocking points and opportunities for improvement.

As a result, business can put in place strategies that drive operational efficiencies.

3. Identify trends across stores

The data collected from this analysis will help a business know what time of the day has the most activity, and whether it changes from one store to another.

As such, they can capitalize on this and adapt the business hours, rethink their marketing efforts and better allocate staff resources. 

For example, if a store is receiving 70% more traffic at a given time, the manager can consider proposing an alternative “Happy Hour” time, to distribute the traffic along the day and avoid peak time concentrations.

4. Get actionable insights

Compilation of WiFi analytics and camera analytics can help develop figures that may show a trend in clients’ buying habits.

From tracking onsite traffic and dwell time, to defining visit demographics, retailers can get access to a myriad of data.

When correctly analyzed and crossed with other performance metrics to understand how elements relate to one another, retailers can make better-informed decisions to optimize their business.

5. Track onsite traffic in real time

Employee and customer safety is paramount in the days we live. Location analytics technology can help businesses strengthen their social distancing measures.

By tracking the number of people simultaneously present in a given space and setting up alerts when the limit number is reached, retailers can reinforce their response against the spread of the virus.

Conclusion

For any business to work well, it needs to keep up with the evolution of their business and new trends. This is especially necessary in the ever evolving reality we currently live.

The one way to know about a clients’ buying habits and unveil hidden insights on the business performance is by investing in quality location and customer analytics tools.

Location analytics solutions, such as Boundless Analytics, give access to real-time changes in the business performance, so that retailers can make well-informed decisions that enhance business outcomes right on time.

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