In-store analytics are currently a hot topic in the retail industry. While using clickstream data to understand shopper behavior is a given in ecommerce, retailers that want to gain a complete, multi-channel view of the customer experience are realizing that they can’t continue to overlook their biggest sales channel — the brick-and-mortar store. But since capturing accurate data in the real world requires different tools than following a digital trail, retailers are still considering the best approaches for in-store analytics. How mature is this emerging technology market? What are the primary motivations for deploying in-store solutions? This is what Brickstream, the in-store analytics market leader, set out to answer in a recent survey of 124 executives from global retail corporations.
The study, "Retail Analytics: What's In-Store," has uncovered a number of insights, including the following:
- People Counting Tops List of In-Store Metrics Sought. While retailers are interested in collecting a broad range of data in stores, they placed a premium on customer traffic data (otherwise known as people counting), citing metrics on how many customers enter a store and how many of those buy (sales conversions) as their #1 and #2 most important measurements. They also value knowing which promotions attract customers, where customers go in the store and which products they choose. Not surprisingly, 71 percent of the retailers surveyed said that they use or plan to use people counting technology in their stores, with in-store Wi-Fi and loyalty systems coming in at 68 percent, and mobile payment/wireless POS and queue management technologies of interest to at least 52 percent of respondents.
- Marketing is Leading the Way. Survey respondents consistently cited marketing insight as an initial driver for in-store analytics deployments, with operations, merchandising and loss prevention cited as functions also identified as areas that will benefit from increased visibility into what’s happening in the store. Marketing was seen as the department most likely to instigate and lead in-store analytics initiatives, with other departments expected to follow suit as the value of technologies deployed are proven.
- Interest in Multi-Channel Insight is Gaining Steam. As more and more consumers shop and interact with retail brands across store, ecommerce and mobile and social channels, retailers are increasingly interested in getting a multi-channel perspective of customer behavior and sales. Survey respondents reported a timeline of within a year to four years for becoming fully multi-channel, with supermarkets and department stores ranking as early adopters and more invested in multi-channel activities than other retailers. Stores and ecommerce are viewed as the most dominant sales channels, with more than 80 percent of respondents naming these important, with mobile and social channels also ranked highly, at 73 percent and 66 percent, respectively.
- Price and Ease of Use Seen as Potential Barriers. Survey respondents confirmed there is value in investing in in-store analytics, and singled out greater insight into retail performance, as well as knowledge that enables improvements in staffing and the overall customer experience as key motivations for adoption. At the same time, respondents also expressed concerns about whether returns would justify the price and about potential disruptions involved in deployment and training employees on new systems. These reservations suggest a cautious user base looking for guidance on the most streamlined and cost-effective ways to move forward.
Retail executives in operations, marketing, merchandising and loss prevention from the U.S., South America, Europe and Asia were interviewed for the Brickstream in-store analytics survey, with eight major categories represented, including supermarkets, department stores, specialty electronics, warehouse, drug stores/pharmacies, cell phone stores and big box retailers. More than half the respondents (54 percent) were from large retailers with revenues of $1B and more; the balance came from midmarket retailers ($100 million to $1 billion in revenues).
Interested in hearing more? Brickstream is hosting a webinar discussion of the survey results on Thursday, June 19 at TIME. For more information, and to register, visit: http://brickstream.com/resources/research/retail-analytics-whats-in-store/webinar-registration/?tsource=rdlib