Use Data to Make Last-Minute Tweaks to E-Commerce Holiday Strategy

Retailers have long been preparing for the 2016 holiday season, which is now upon us. E-commerce and brick-and-mortar store strategies have been implemented, and now data is being collected on shoppers.

At this point in the year, it’s time to focus on monitoring and analyzing performance across digital channels.

“Retailers must understand what customers are doing in each channel, how their actions in one channel will influence their behavior in another and why they're behaving in a particular way,” explains Robert Hain, product innovator/offering manager at IBM. “In addition, retailers must also identify journey paths that lead to highest average revenue — and know why that's the case — so that they can replicate those paths and improve the less-optimal journey paths.”

Join Hain and Gene Bornac, vice president of Boston Retail Partners, to learn more about this topic in the free webinar “A Retailer’s Last-Minute Guide to E-Commerce Holiday Preparedness,” happening tomorrow, Nov. 17, at 2:00 p.m. ET.

This interactive webinar will address the following subjects, enabling you to make this holiday season a successful one:

How Customer Analytics Can Be Turned Into Insights
“Retailers are spending even more time trying to make sense of all that data,” Hain says. “They're essentially data rich, information poor. As a result, in order for retailers to understand their customers, they need to connect all these data points into one single system/platform that will flow data into journey paths where retailers can see customers from macro and micro levels.”

What to Track to Make Last-Minute Tweaks to Holiday Planning
Retailers are constantly tracking data and can forecast how they will fare during busy shopping days such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. However, Hain says retailers should track customer behavior in real time during the holiday season to see the best results.

“For example,” Hain says, “retailers must track their checkout flows very closely and monitor KPIs [key performance indicators] such as conversion and abandonment rate. If they see a spike, they can drill down to find the root cause and resolve it quickly so other customers aren't impacted.”

Why Analytics Hold the Key to a Better Customer Experience
Consumers have smaller attention spans and are more impatient than ever during the busy holiday season. Retailers that are able to parse through data and make necessary changes will see increased sales and profits.

“It's the retailer's responsibility to make the shopping experience effort-free, where the customer can find what they need in their own time on whichever channel or device, and then check out painlessly," notes Hain. "These small tweaks will go a long way, even after the holiday season, because great customer experience will increase repeat purchases and customer loyalty.”

Webinar attendees will also get real-world examples of brands that have leveraged analytics to improve the customer journey. Be sure to register here for the free webinar happening tomorrow, Nov. 17, at 2:00 p.m. ET.