Data is the most important asset of the retail industry. Data is useless if it does not help companies to make smarter decisions for business growth. As consumer behavior is evolving with time, it depends on how data are helping retail companies to get relevant business insights, improving customer experience leading to enhanced business outcomes. Predictive Analytics is the AI /ML digital tool that works on data to derive valuable insights and predictions, forecasting sales thereby helping retailers to plan ‘What Next’ moves. How Predictive Analytics can boost the retail industry? How is it helping retailers to generate sales and have a competitive edge in the market? We will discuss all these points in this blog today.

1. Product Demand Forecast

As a retailer, you want your business to expand and products to connect with your target audience. If you know what does your target audience demand and their preferences, your products will never be out of stock or understock, right? To keep your business running smoothly, predictive analytics helps to forecast the demand for exact products your target audience wants. The technology helps to ensure that you have enough items stocked to sell and can meet demands adequately and can predict your profitable months as well as sales deficit. It means predictive analytics helps retailers to assess demand and sales performances. Product performance can be gauged by indicators such as sales margins, the number of units sold besides other metrics. It helps to improve consumer engagement and satisfaction.

2. Pricing Forecast

Pricing forecasts is a major functionality of predictive analytics that uses real-time capabilities of machine learning, and data science technology, to bring out adequate answers to questions that as a retailer you’d like to know in advance. Few sample questions that predictive analytics can forecast regarding pricing elements are:

• For maximizing sales what’s the right price point?
• What should be the frequency for running price-based promotional activities?
• What should be the optimal attainable price of a customer?
• How the competitive pricing will impact sales?

Apart from the above factors, weather forecasting, real-time sales data also help to alter as well as induce the most perfect pricing part (best pricing ).

 3. Managing Inventory

As we have mentioned earlier, too, how predictive analytics helps in estimating product demand and what your target audience wants, it also helps towards managing your inventory properly and up to the mark. A poorly maintained inventory leads to a loss in sales. As a retailer, you will never like to hold on to those products that are not yielding sales. Moreover, you will always want to replenish stocks that your consumers want to buy. Predictive analytics helps to predict demand for products that help you to manage your inventory.

4.  Marketing Campaigns

As a retail business, you need to prioritize marketing campaigns from time to time.  Your business needs a powerful marketing plan that helps to boost your business potentials driving the best ROI. An inefficient marketing campaign management leads to a poor ROI because you cannot estimate the right budget and varied inaccurate calculations done on your part.AI-ML digital capabilities of predictive analytics help you to gain actionable marketing insights, and suggest you adopt individual campaigning for a specific target audience and be more budget efficient leading to maximum conversion of leads.

5.  In-Store Optimization

Predictive analytics helps in online monitoring of shopping activities, as well as in-store data analysis. Varied digital tools & technologies, IoT sensors, and surveillance cameras that are installed in retail stores, on product shelves, help to monitor the shopping activities of varied consumers. The technology helps you in the following ways:

• You can identify your shoppers’ favorite routes throughout the retail floor
• You can identify and distinguish popular, most searched products on varied shelves
• You can count the total number  of visitors  in your shopping zone at different times per day
• You can adequately calculate the average visit time of customers
• You can genuinely monitor queues

Predictive analytics helps you to gather these valuable insights. Using these insights, you can configure store layouts, plan the schedules of your staff, can distinguish the ideal opening hours of your retail stores, reduce customers’ waiting time in queues, and increase the high level of security.

6.  Shopping Cart

 If you own an e-commerce retail store, you can leverage the massive capabilities of AI-ML-powered predictive analytics to optimize your online store, product categories as per existing online shopping carts of consumers. For instance, your customers while browsing your online shopping stores may come across products they like so much. They save them, add them to their shopping carts. When they don’t buy them,  predictive analytics tracks them and lets you know why they didn’t buy and how you should respond to this kind of situation in the future.

7. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing, online advertising are important segments of retail marketing. As a retailer, you’d think social media marketing involves greater expenditure than offline advertising. But using predictive analytics, you can manage these upfront costs and invest in social channels where you gain the maximum outreach and visibility. Predictive analytics can help you maintain a strong social media presence. You don’t have to stress regarding unreasonable expenses because the digital tool helps you to invest smartly on those social channels where you get the maximum ROI and prospect of acquiring new customers.

Conclusion

Predictive Analytics can help to predict the future of your retail business. Whether you are an online retailer sharing an online marketplace with bigwigs or small start-ups in the offline retail space, predictive analytics helps you to extract valuable actionable insights for your business outcomes in the right direction. The aforementioned AI-ML-powered digital capabilities of predictive analytics are just a few significant use cases in the retail industry. There are many more benefits yet to unfold. Stay tuned to this space and we will have further elaboration on this topic with detailed analysis.

Are you a retailer in the e-commerce industry or a physical retail store and changing consumer behavior bothering you? Want to know how predictive analytics can help you solve this challenge and grow your retail business?? Reach us.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severed the economy worldwide, and the retail industry, not an exception as well! Despite all, retailers are preparing for the industry’s recovery, and are reopening stores. In the ‘New Normal’ retail leaders are focusing on adopting technology as a  revival tool to attract consumers to their in-stores. Artificial- Intelligence-powered Video Surveillance is becoming their apt choice because this will help them monitor in-store occupancy, traffic patterns, foot traffic, high occupancy zones, social distancing, and mask-wearing. As per the Statista forecasts, the Video Surveillance Camera market size will reach 44 billion US Dollars by 2025. Let’s delve deep to see how  AI-Video Surveillance and analytics can ensure a seamless in-store retailing in the ‘New Normal’.

But before that

First, a little retrospection

If you are a retailer, you must be busy exploring newer ideas and avenues to revive, thrive your retail business, and increase sales.  Retrospection may have become an inevitable regimen for, comparisons are but natural and involuntary disposition in itself. Exactly, when had you last experienced an uninterrupted,  smooth, and unobtrusive selling in a real-time environment? Think of this day, last year! People, or, consumers, were moving around, busy strolling down your shopping lanes, window shopping until they entered your store and went for unlimited purchases! The buzzing life, the busyness of the businesses across streets, shops, and shopping malls are what you are longing for!

So, what’s now?

Going back to the delving scenario–  AI-powered video surveillance technology gearing up to restart and picking up  your business from the point you had left last (when the COVID struck and suddenly you had to pull down the shutters)

Remote based Real-Time  Monitoring

IP surveillance systems such as IP Dome cameras ( popular in departmental stores and shopping malls) use AI-powered people’s tracking technology to monitor people’s behavior and activities inside the store. Tracking consumers’ behavior, tracking staff behavior, in short, tracking people’s behavior in your in-store premises helps build behavior analytics and give actionable insights into the decision-making process to drive sales, increase conversion rates and generate profits.

It works like this –  Cameras constantly record data using an IP surveillance system, operate on a network, do stream footage, which can be viewed rather remotely, from an authorized PC with an internet connection.IP Domes or cameras have remote-controlled functions like pan, title, and zoom ones. This helps enhance recognizing images and visuals more clearly.

Measurement of foot traffics

Foot traffics are the number of people who have been inside your store, or in the vicinity having a peek inside, window shopping,  at a given time. More traffic means more business. Sprucing up the windows, exterior, doing up visual merchandising are few tips for that curb-appeal to attract consumers, increase foot traffic.

Customer engagement and garnering interest and converting it to purchasing decision is a step-by-step process. How to find if your store has a sufficient level of foot traffic? The answer is Video Surveillance. Installing the right AI-based cameras inside and outside your store is what is required! Motion-detection, people counting are possible via a high resolution, 24*7, people counting CCTV at the entrance and exit points can see the footfalls and help to know the business trend.

Monitoring staff-behavior towards customers

Customer service is very important in your retail business, especially in-store, where the way your staff behaves with customers directly impacts your brand image. For instance, you have decorated your store in the prettiest way, implementing some trendiest gimmicks and running some great offers, but if your staff members are not giving a good customer service, your all marketing measures become a damp-squib. Making a first impression on customers starts with your staff’s behavior towards them. So, how AI video surveillance solutions can help you in this situation and you can take adequate steps to sort out things on time? You can think of investing in your staff training, too! So, it is indeed a wise step to install one camera that can help you meet business goals?

Monitoring, Preventing theft

AI-based Video Surveillance tools can help you keep a check on your employees’ and consumers’ behavior. Any suspicious activity on their part can be duly recorded and transmitted for timely action. For instance, a retail security camera mounted above the point-of-sales area can help you monitor cash registers, POS machines, and transactions made from time to time. Also, installing a camera where high –value items are stored can help to maintain the security aspect in-store.

Heatmap Analytics

Heat mapping analytics is the video surveillance technology combining with AI-based analytics software to find the following things-

• To see where your customers are spending more time inside the store
• To keep track  where they are not at all giving attention,i.e. ignoring certain sections in the store
• To keep track of the products on which customers spend more time
• To locate sections, products, that they have touched, picked, and kept back, and so on.

Thus,   a CCTV camera and a central computer loaded with Inbuilt Analytics- Software in the shoptogether coordinate to track shoppers and build data-based information for you.

COVID-19 Safety Measures Compliance

CCTV capture images and reports are prepared by AI analytics, that’s how you can utilize the immense capabilities of the very ubiquitous video surveillance solutions. You have to be vigilant towards CORONA precautionary measures. Maintaining social distancing is now possible by using AI-powered solutions. Heat mapping solutions highlight crowded areas in red while the spot with zero occupancies will be shown green on the CCTV screen. The  3D Geometry measures social distancing and alarm messages can be shown on the screen. Also, infrared cameras can measure the body temperature of the shoppers. This is how you can think of reviving your retail in-store business using Video Surveillance tools.

Time to take the call

Thus, you see how AI-bassed video surveillance technology helps determine customer buying behavior. Your business and goals depend a lot on the data gathered out of categorizing your in-store premises into –

• the most trafficked areas
• dead areas
• and bottlenecks

This way, you can devise your business plans using analytics enhancing areas most trafficked, giving priorities to them, Also, you can find the remedial solutions why dead areas had no traffic. The bottlenecks need to be resolved to your favor meeting business goals. Consulting an expert can help you find out the most suitable AI-Video Surveillance Solution Software for your retail in-store.

Need an expert consultation for your retail in-store? We have a ready to use AI-Video Surveillance Solution for your business to get started

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