To succeed in 2018, every retailer should be asking these questions around inventory, returns, marketing, warehousing, pricing and customers. With DynamicAction retail analytics, your team will be able to answer questions like these, as well as understand the interconnection of each data point and decision.
Critical questions every retailer must ask
Inventory – Views Alignment
Aligning inventory to web product views is comparable to an online planogram. In stores, items in the shop windows will typically sell well, and putting sold out or low inventory products in the window is clearly a poor strategy. On the web, we have the luxury of measuring what customers view and what customers abandon (put back on the shelf). These questions represent a new way of working that successful web merchandisers must adopt.
1. Which products should be exposed or marketed together to capitalize on lift and maximize profit?
2. How much inventory is not getting viewed on the website? How can I quickly identify those products and any potential problems?
3. Which products are receiving too many or too few views, given their inventory levels, conversion, profitability, review ratings, time on site and fragmentation?
4. For which product categories are we under or over-optioned, given viewing demand?
5. What percentage of our product views land on in-stock, non-fragmented items?
6. What technology am I using to make automatic changes to inventory processes?
Returns
Returns have a sobering impact on retail profitability. They can be fueled by misbehaving customers who take advantage of a customer-first return policy and factors under the company’s control such as poor product descriptions, unorganized marketing programs and disconnected order fulfillment. However, those losses ($642.6 billion annually worldwide) can be reduced and recouped by pinpointing the problems at various levels of the enterprise.
7. What are the most efficient actions we can take to reduce returns?
8. What percentage of customers return 100% of what they purchase (e.g. “free rentals”)?
→Did you know? You can automatically stop or reduce advertising to undesirable customers by feeding DynamicAction data back into your marketing platform using the DynamicAction Export API.
9. What percentage of customers frequently return the majority of any order containing substitutable items (e.g. “home dressing room”)?
10. What percentage of High Value/Most Profitable customers return products with a return rationale under our control (e.g. damaged, differs from web description, wrong item)?
Marketing Spend
Organizations have the ability to know precisely how every digital marketing dollar translates into revenue and profit – or doesn’t. It’s time for retailers to go beyond return on ad spend and begin to understand marketing results in terms of stock alignment and profitability.
11. How much money are we spending on marketing campaigns that send customers to products that are sold out or highly fragmented?
12. For which products should we curtail marketing spend because we will sell through the item without the paid exposure?
13. Which marketing initiatives, promotions, and customer segments are the most profitable, once you consider all costs including returns?
14. How is my technology working to optimize marketing campaigns efficiently?
Warehouse Operations
When retailers make better decisions about how to promise and fulfill customer orders, the result is improved customer satisfaction. Retailers have an opportunity to focus on their most profitable customers and ensure they receive a VIP experience. They can also place emphasis on exceptional service for new customers and execution that turns one-time buyers into loyal repeat purchasers.
15. What percentage of orders from High Value/Most Profitable customers get shipped within 24 hours? What percentage are delivered after their delivery promise date?
16. Are we decreasing our average days to ship for new customer orders?
17. For which stores and/or warehouses have we over or under-allocated for our most profitable products?
Pricing
When an item isn’t selling well, oftentimes retailers are quick to execute a profit-eating price markdown. Fortunately, timely data is now available to point to potentially less expensive corrective measures that will still allow retailers to make plan.
18. Given inventory levels, conversion, profitability, review ratings, time on site, fragmentation, and competition, for which items do we need to consider a price reduction?
19. For which overstocked products is an increase in exposure a more profitable action than a price reduction?
20. Which products require a pricing reduction due to lower competitive prices?
21. How is my technology working to make pricing changes efficiently?
Customers
What if you could create a merchandising strategy specifically geared towards cultivating a customer base that collectively was more profitable than last year’s customer base? Year after year, certain products and collections are responsible for attracting, keeping and re-acquiring customers that are profitable. Executives need to be able to identify these goldmines—even in omnichannel organizations—point the merchandising teams in their direction, and let them go to work.
22. Which first-purchase brands lead to High Value/High Lifetime Profit customers?
23. Which campaigns and promotions perform the best at luring back previously High Value Lapsed customers?
24. How is my technology enabling my organization to create optimized customer experiences that precisely match customers with products that generate maximum revenue and profit?
Retailers can answer all of these questions and more with DynamicAction.
Next Step: Finding Answers
DynamicAction puts connected data, instant insights and prescribed action plans at the fingertips of retailers so they can answer critical questions and take immediate, optimized actions that directly impact profit growth. Retail teams know exactly where to focus, what to do and how much financial impact to expect.
