3 Ways Data Generated from an Online Business Can Develop Efficient Operations for a Unified Retail Business

As an online retail business, it is imperative that you have metrics in place to measure performance. As competition in online retail grows, the best way to retain market share is to have key performance indicators in place in order to gauge how well your business is doing and continue to grow at a rapid pace. Within this framework, data is key to scaling fast and scaling well. Having the right data measurement in place allows you to understand past trends, optimize your current performance, and have a prediction model in place to understand how to grow your business in the future.

Here are three ways data generated from your online business is vital in developing an efficient operation for a unified retail business:

1) A personalized shopping experience

To stay competitive in the marketplace, it is absolutely essential that businesses know their customer. This might sound redundant, but as the trend shifts towards e-commerce, this becomes harder to accomplish. A personalized customer journey can only be created if the right data metrics are in place to help make that shift. This means having a system in place that can identify different customer behaviors, and modify accordingly to give them a personalized experience.

For example, at the VTEX platform, it includes coupons and promotions at different steps of the journey, and using data to measure the effectiveness of these different performances. E-commerce is continually shifting, but the right data and insights can help you build a meaningful customer journey that keeps your target demographics coming back for more.

2) Increased customer acquisition

Building on the last point, it is important to keep in mind that a personalized customer journey is only as successful as your rate of customer acquisition. If you continue to see lots of bounces and unfinished sales, it might be time to put in a formal structure of data capturing to understand why that is happening. The biggest reason for having an increased awareness of data is that it can help you pinpoint where the gaps are in the customer journey, and you can put in strategies to fix it. The right data allows you to be proactive, rather than reactive. This is especially true for customer acquisition, as this can be a high-risk area.

VTEX has integrations and solutions in place that give you advanced SEO options and responsive design so your website renders the same, no matter what device it is being used on. These two solutions give customers more ways to get to know you and provide essential data which helps determine their effectiveness.

3) Measure process efficiency

E-commerce businesses are dependent on effective processes as a driver for growth. From customer experience to shipping and fulfillment, you want to ensure that each process is optimized and leaves no room for error. But do you have a way to measure that? And do you have a way to compare year-to-year results to see if processes are improving, or working against your business? Data generated from your online business is able to answer both of these questions and gives you enough information to streamline and improve.

For example, shipping and fulfillment tends to fall victim to a bad process, but your generated data can help improve that. There are solutions that help you chart the customer experience, and gives options for canceling, exchanging, and viewing their orders capture. These are very vital data points. In turn, you can use this data to see if customers are more likely to cancel or exchange. They also track the way customers respond to the different options given in an order to optimize your offerings.

What all these reasons demonstrate is that data generated from your online business can have a massive impact on the future of your business, encompassing all your different operations. This comprehensive data that is being generated will allow you to streamline operations for efficiency, without hampering growth.

At VTEX we are focused on making our client stores assist their companies to grow as a whole and not only its online sales. Knowledge generated from the online business has driven important decisions on all other channels. As a final take, observe your client’s behavior during the entire online process. Gaps might exist in places that are beyond an online experience.