Geospatial technology is a valuable support system for a retail business
Retail companies are under extraordinary pressure in 2016. Modern day shoppers are more demanding than ever. Armed with mobile computers in their pockets and petabytes of information at their fingertips, requiring retailers to rethink their marketing strategies and be nimble enough to react in real-time to competitive and customer trends.
One technology that more and more retail companies are using is a GIS (geo-information systems). Frequently referred to as location intelligence or geospatial technology, it is a powerful big data technique that combines seemingly unrelated data to create powerful insights that would not have been apparent in a spreadsheet.
Geospatial technology works by mixing location-based information (such as customer addresses, sales territories, and delivery routes) with business information like sales figures, product inventory, and delivery routes; enabling retailers to do everything from customer profiling and site selection through to supply chain optimisation and competitor analysis.
Here are three ways that retail companies can employ location intelligence to boost their bottom line, solve complex business problems, and improve operational decision-making.
- Measure and visualise market trends
Visualising data by location can reveal geographic trends for information such as customers, products, and sales — all of which are probably held in separate datasets. When all of this data is analysed and overlaid on a map, a company can quickly see customer hotspots and how competitors are situated in relation to potential customers.
Performing a geospatial analysis of sales data could reveal that a particular type of product is doing especially well in areas where there is a large concentration of households with high disposable incomes. The marketing director could then use that information to increase advertising spend for that product in territories with the same demographic makeup.
- Profile customers
Retailers collect huge amounts of data about their customers, but it is limited when viewed in isolation. Location intelligence gives customer data a geographic context, producing insights on customers’ purchase habits and interests. Enabling retailers to reach them with targeted and localised marketing messages and loyalty program offers.
Location-based marketing is a big trend for 2016, taking advantage of the customers’ location-enabled smartphone to trigger ads and promotional offers when they are in close proximity to a store.
- Select the right sites
More often than not, the success of any bricks and mortar retail outlet comes down to location. But this isn’t a simple case of checking out the potential building on foot and seeing whether the neighbourhood is nice. Judging a site’s location should incorporate things like consumer demand, foot traffic patterns, nearby points of interests (such as shopping centres and parking stations), competition, complementary businesses nearby, and daytime population — not all of which can be judged on casual inspection.
Rather than rely solely on the real estate agent’s recommendation, retailers can take advantage of location intelligence to analyse all of these factors in order to assess the suitability of any potential site.
The retail sector is increasingly recognising the importance of linking business and consumer data with geographically correlated information.
Since location is inherent in all organisational data, geospatial intelligence can give business a competitive advantage by helping them better understand and evaluate their data.
Geospatial technology is a valuable support system for a retail business looking to save time, money, and resources. In the highly-competitive retail market, location strategy assist businesses in the decision-making process by providing insights and powerful analysis to reduce long term risks.
Consumers do have access to an immense amount of data, and it is keep retailers on their toes, but retailers have a new weapon in their arsenal, and it is called GIS. Geospatial technology creates location intelligence, and when produced by professionals, it can give retailers the edge they need to stay ahead of the game.
Why wait to ‘react’, when you can pre-empt!
