Instant gratification: No better time than now for retailers to leverage on web analytics

THIS year, Alibaba's Singles' Day sales extravaganza hit 168.3 billion yuan (S$34.6 billion), surpassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales combined, taking the throne as the world's largest shopping event. Closer to home, the Great Singapore Sale (GSS) also did well, recording a 2-4 per cent increase from 2016, its highest since 2012. This was boosted by the GoSpree app, launched by the Singapore Retailers Association to increase sales and drive shopper traffic to malls. Clearly, these retailers are now doing something right, and with the festive shopping season upon us, how can they continue to build on this momentum with individual shoppers to encourage in-store sales?

We are now in a digital era where we can have what we want instantly, and at a favourable price point. Chico's FAS, Inc, a leading women's clothing retailer in the United States, relies on a robust customer intelligence solution to consolidate and analyse customer and transactional information to create a complete view of the customer. Rather than just analysing visitor numbers, the system analyses what customers are looking out for, what drives purchases, how and when to contact customers, and what the right offers are, to create targeted channel marketing for better customer experiences. Chico's FAS has been able to enhance its relationships with shoppers, as well as generate better results from its targeted marketing campaigns.

In the same vein, retailers in physical stores can take a leaf from Chico's FAS's book, using an omnichannel approach and data-driven technologies to move away from broad, generic offers, and instead towards targeted, personalised recommendations and offers. Relevance to each customer is critical to effective cross-selling and up-selling, and this is where analytics and AI often contribute the most.