Five Reasons Why Location Analytics is Essential for Retailers

Introduction

Online analytics have become essential in determining what the consumer wants. But what about in-store? Are businesses utilizing location data as aggressively as they should be?

Here are five reasons why location-based data analytics can help retailers make better decisions and improve their business performance.

Site Selection

With the advances in location-based data analytics, it is now possible for retailers to decide on potential new store locations based on a dynamic digital map of the area. For example, retailers can visualize the traffic flow and patterns of a particular neighborhood to reveal the amount of traffic they can expect around their store. If they notice that another store that draws a similar customer base but is not a direct competitor, is drawing in a lot of traffic, it may be of benefit to decide to build nearby.

Marketing

Location-based data has become so important to the marketer's arsenal of tactics. Knowing a person's age, lifestyle, and geographic location can give the marketer a deeper understanding of how to tailor marketing campaigns that will surely entice them. For example, a marketer that knows their target audience mostly resides in a wealthy neighborhood can tailor their efforts to offer more high-end products.

Demand

Choosing a site for a new retail location is more than just picking an up-and-coming or high-end neighborhood. It is important to understand the demographics and geographic data of your customers so that you can offer the right products to the right people. If you don’t take these things into consideration you could wind up building a store in an area of town that doesn’t suit the lifestyle of the people living there. For example, you may be really excited about your store that sells outdoor equipment and lake accessories. You decide to build the store in a high-traffic area within a well-populated part of a city. Even though the overall foot traffic is high, your store hardly makes a profit. This comes down to the demand for your product in relation to the geographic market. City people may not find the value in your store as much as people who are traveling on the outskirts of the city, making their way to the beach or cottage.

Targeted Advertising

Location analytics works wonders for marketing to a specific audience. Some location technologies allow for exact headcounts of people occupying a space as well as heat maps that show how much interest an area is generating. This data can then be used to send out advertisements, campaigns, and proximity-based messages to evoke an action with the visitor. An example of this could be a new display in your store that people have been taking an interest in. The heatmap shows an average dwell time of 2 minutes. This would be a perfect opportunity to send out a message that relates to the display, whether it is a sale or an offer, or a piece of information that is providing additional context. If you are providing a sale or promotion it is more likely that people will act on it if it's delivered at the right time.

Store Operations

The efficiency of how a store operates affects the profitability of the business as well as the happiness of the customers. It is not something that can be overlooked and can always be improved. Location analytics can help with maximizing store operations by understanding customer wait times in various departments and check-out registers. The data obtained from observing these patterns can be used to justify additional staffing at certain times of the day, as well as hold managers accountable. Insights can be used to determine the best time to perform disruptive tasks such as stocking shelves, deep cleaning, and resetting displays.

Conclusion

After discussing a few reasons why retailers need location analytics to improve their businesses, it becomes clear that deriving data from the location of customers can be of major value. Location data supports decisions when improving processes, building new locations, determining an ideal marketing strategy, and more.

An Electronic and communication Engineer graduate from New York, Jason Davis working Technical Specialist. He has passion of writing technical blogs. He started following his passion from 2012.