Data analytics has become the most sought-after, critical detail required to help businesses improve and thrive, especially in this current climate with Covid19, travel restrictions, and vaccinations taking place. Its application in industries of all kinds ranges from uncovering operational inefficiencies to discovering new sales opportunities.

There is a change in the way the travel retail industry functions – both offline and online. Until a few years ago, the travel retail industry focused only on advertising and customer service. Now, the focus is on collecting data, analysing it, and then using the conclusions attained from the analysis to improve the marketing, sales, and customer service strategies.

There are several advantages for travel retailers to use Data Analytics. Let us look at them in detail.

1. Understanding Customer Shopping Behaviours

Data analytics that tracks customer behaviours help retailers to understand how their customers are shopping, what they like, and where they prefer to receive promotions. Using this data, they can optimize marketing

efforts and create offers best suited for customers as well as uncover tactics for retention and personalization that improve sales and lower costs.

Chinese-Shopper-Tracker

2. In-Store Experience Tracking

For omnichannel to brick-and-mortar retailers, improving the in-store experience is critical today. One way data analytics can improve merchandising is through tracking. To do so, sensors, beacons, and mobile applications are used to track customer movements throughout the store. Once this data is collected it’s then analysed for insights around how to deliver excellent customer experiences, where to focus attention and what leads to consumers coming back to shop again in the future.

3. Better Promotions by Nationality

Improving conversion rates is essential in retail as online real estate for goods to continue to be flooded. With airport traveller data, travel retailers and brands at airports can create hyper-targeted promotions, and OOH advertising campaigns so retailers can uncover what offers and products are most popular, what’s being signed up for, and more. With this data, they can continue to test and analyse new ways to capture customer interest from airport terminal level to passenger type.

Traveller-Statistics

4. Tracking the Customer Journey

Perhaps one of the most critical facts about customers is their journey – an overall look at their entire experience with the brand, from departing destination to the final arrival gate. From communications to the online and in-store experience, purchases, and their interactions with ads. Getting a full view of this helps reduce cart abandonment, increases the likelihood of closing a sale, and helps retailers understand how to best guide customers to complete the buying process.

ForwardKeys-Nexus

5. Operational and Supply Chain Improvements

Using analytics in the supply chain is one of the more recent ways retailers are upping their game. The data can be used for everything from product tracking to improved quality, real-time inventory management, better forecasting to even your choice of brand ambassadors.

It’s also speeding up the delivery of goods – something consumers have come to expect. Making better decisions at this level of the operations not only cuts down on costs it also can impact the bottom line.

6. Determine the location for new stores

This is especially advantageous for retailers who wish to open a new store in a particular location. Data analytics helps the retailer to find out places where maximum people spend most of their time. Analytics also provides information on the demographics, their spending power, and the market conditions. This helps retailers to select areas, which they think are apt for operating their retail outlet and get maximum customers.

7. Aids strategic decision-making

There is a popular quote by W. Edward Deming that goes – in God we trust, all others must bring data. Travel retailers are dependent on data to make strategic decisions. Companies rely on data to make informed business decisions using a single and trusted source of information about products and customers.

In conclusion

The Travel Retail industry faces many challenges in the Age of Corona, so why not make life less complicated and use data to tackle some of your business problems? For some, it may be down to the issue of lacking a skilled team to decipher data or maybe the inability of the companies to implement the insights gained from analytics into their business.

However, with the right tools and correct inference from travel retailers, data analytics can help in increasing customer loyalty and boost its brand image to sales by delivering optimal customer satisfaction. With technology taking a centre stage in the travel retail industry, it can safely be deduced that data analytics will remain a crucial part of it.

If you’d like to get started using data analytics to transform your travel retail business or to improve your existing processes, give ForwardKeys a call.

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