In businesses, it is necessary to gather data on consumer demands, sales, supply chain movement, inventory levels and other things pertaining to the business and that is what Retail Market Analysis is about; gathering these analytical data that are important for making marketing and purchasing decisions.
Retail analysis is an important factor in achieving success in your retail business. Hence, it is important for you as a retail marketer to rely on retail analytics rather than on guesswork, so as to enable you make smart decisions that will ensure better customer satisfaction and help you acquire more profit.
Who can do Retail Market Analysis?
It is the duty of an analyst to do Retail Market Analysis. The responsibilities of a Retail Market Analyst include providing analytical support to maximize product performance, conducting merchandizing and financial analysis, analyzing sales reports and evaluating retail performances amidst others. So you might want to employ the services of one to carry out the analysis if you can’t do it yourself.
In analyzing a retail market, it is necessary for you to follow the underlisted steps to help you collect and put to use the data collected in your retail business.
Have the right tools. Having the right tools and knowing how to use them properly is an added advantage. Tools that could be used include the POS, email marketing software and foot traffic analytics. Some businesses do not know how to fully use the tools they use in their analysis. For example, the POS is mostly used just to ring up sales whereas it could also be used to report important metrics such as profit margins, sales trends, customer counts and so much more.
You should make provision for your business to have these tools and learn to utilize them in making proper analysis.
Retail analysts can also use timing to predict what next your customers would buy. By knowing when a customer checked or bought something, a retail analyst can have an idea of what or when next the customer will buy.
Retail analysts should not only depend on the data of just one report collected but should compare and relate different reports so as to get the most out of the data being collected.
You should encourage your customers to actively share their details. You do not need to collect these details secretly without their notice. By collecting these details through surveys, discussions and other research methods, your business won’t only get the most out of the data collection efforts but also build a bond between you and your customers and also foster trust especially if the customers know you are putting the information to good use.
In addition to these, you should combine the data collected both offline and online with human insights to make the best decisions in the business.
Looking at all the analytical data collected from reports, you can determine products that are bringing in much revenue and can then plan your stock orders accordingly.
As a retailer, if you want to do well in the retail market, you should endeavor to carry out effective retail analysis to make right decisions that will help your business grow.