How companies can leverage big data to boost e-commerce sales

IN the digital age, marketing is a whole new ball game.

In the past, companies needing to adjust their ad campaigns would struggle to find relevant data to help make the right decisions.

Today, access to “big data” such as customer demand, website clicks, and user behavior patterns — at the click of a button — makes managing campaigns easy.

With revolutionary marketing strategy enabled by big data, brands are enjoying up to 8 percent increased profit and 10 percent reduction in cost, according to one study.

Moreover, there are various ways e-commerce companies can utilize big data to improve sales:

# 1 | Accurate trend predictions

As often witnesses on the popular e-commerce giant, Amazon, well-placed recommendations of products during browsing sessions could make a difference towards shifting more goods.

Amazon, it turns out does tap into big data to accurately predict the type of product that customer is seeking at any given time. The US$1 trillion dollar retail company attributes several factors for its accurate prediction of customers’ need.

• When customers make a purchase
• How customers rate or like new items
• Changes in the interest of other similar customers

Not only does Amazon tracking a specific customer’s purchase, but they are also tracking the purchases and interest of other customers with a similar profile and shopping patterns.

Analyzing how one purchase corresponds to another could really help derive an added insight on what to upsell next.

# 2 | Predicting demand and supply

E-commerce companies struggle to manage inventory and match demand and supply accurately if they’re not using big data.

Large companies, such as Amazon in the US and Lazada in Southeast Asia use big data to understand and predict which customers will demand what products at what time — and they can move their inventory accordingly, ahead of time.

Doing so not only helps the companies better manage their resources but also optimize the delivery times for the buyers, ensuring a better customer experience.

In the future, with the internet of things (IoT) making a debut in the industrial world, e-commerce players will be able to gather even more data about demand and supply of their products, making inventory optimization and inventory-triggered sale-strategies more commonplace.

# 3 | On-page improvements

Vendors these days are tracking to everything customers do when they’re on the website, including mouse movements and keystrokes. These data are then analyzed to predict the next possible move.

Once the likeliest move is figured out, businesses can execute specific actions to provide the customer with the right information at the right time, prevent the customer from moving away from the page with custom-made promotional items.

And with a bigger data set (i.e more visitors to the website), a more robust trend could be established for which appropriate strategy could be put in place.

In short, big companies are already tapping into big data to maximize profits, and as the technology develops over time, it is becoming evident that smaller companies could also leverage it to increase their revenues.

And along with integrating other increasingly accessible technologies such as AI and machine learning, big data could propel small businesses to the next level in terms of growth and earnings.

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