Retail is one of the most versatile industries to be in, with new sales channels emerging and ever-changing consumer trends, it can be difficult to keep track of things.
Customers are now shopping in different ways from m-commerce to click and collect; and this has been driven by an increased adoption of tablet computers and mobile devices. As a result, consumer behaviour has changed with shoppers now wanting a consistent experience across all sales channels, all at a time and place that suits them.
Retailers have adapted to these changes with multi-channel retailing, linking their store and ecommerce sites together in a seamless shopping experience. But how do they measure their success in this new platform? Data analytics is nothing new for retailers. Traditionally they would use store KPI’s such as sales per square foot and footfall count. And for e-commerce sites analytics such as site traffic, disposed baskets, and conversion rate will be measured too. These various metrics were previously treated as separate entities with no consideration for the effect they had on the other sales channels.
But with multi-channel retail, the retail store now acts as a ‘central-hub’ with online customers coming into the store to collect items ordered online, or in store customers redeeming voucher codes on your website. This makes traditional KPI’s such as ‘sales per square foot’ less relevant because in a multi-channel environment, sales are not always attributable to just a single channel.
For example; sales per square foot can no longer be used as a measure of shop space efficiency, as a customer may have seen your item in store and decided to purchase it online at a later time.
Therefore traditional KPI’s should be adapted to provide an accurate measure of each sales channel and show how they influence one another in a multi-channel environment.
Some examples of modern multi-channel KPI’s can be; number of click and collect orders, or incidental purchases made in-store by web visitors (i.e. those who are simply collecting or returning items in-store).
Is it worth it? Adapting to changes in consumer patterns is the first step to retail success, but measuring what they really want, and what’s effective can help you to sustain that retail success. The Only way to identify and measure your effectiveness is to adapt your retail KPI’s.
