E-commerce shop owners can boost sales by uncovering hidden opportunities with big data analytics.
More businesses are conducting trade across international borders – even small ones. Just like their larger counterparts, small-to-medium-sized e-tailers need every advantage possible to survive and prosper. Fortunately for them, big data technology is now more accessible than ever.
The following are six ways that big data can help your e-commerce business grow.
1. Access to Granular Consumer Insights
In e-commerce, opportunities are fleeting. Big data can help small businesses find opportunities fast.
There’s no need to invest in new data sets. Small-to-medium-size businesses (SMEs) can leverage the wealth of data that they already possess.
For instance, your website is a pivotal source of information. By understanding what consumers do when they visit your website, you can make better business decisions. Tools such as Google Analytics can help you to evaluate your internet traffic to learn about consumer behavior.
2. Streamlined Spending
Big data systems can help you reduce overall costs significantly. For instance, a tool such as Tableau’s DataViz is a cost-effective and impressive data visualization tool, and the price point is well below that of some of the more expensive data visualization platforms used by large corporations.
DataViz can give you more in-depth insights into various cost leaders. Using the tool, you can find ways to cut costs that you may have overlooked using only your intuition.
3. Supercharged Marketing Insights
Today’s customers are picky and well-informed. Furthermore, they’re smart when it comes to making buying decisions. As a result, you must adjust your marketing methods to cater to today’s well-versed consumer.
Big data technology can help you do just that. By analyzing your company’s data, you can develop more effective marketing strategies and enjoy a better return-on-investment compared to ad hoc marketing tactics.
4. Improved Responsiveness
Big data can help your SMB respond to opportunities at the speed of information. Today, advances such as artificial intelligence and machine learning language enables business leaders to monitor and analyze complex metrics in real-time. As a result, executives are more empowered than ever before to make informed decisions on the fly.
Agility is one area where your SMB can outpace big corporations. Big corporations are bureaucratic and slow to change.
You can leverage big data technology to make faster decisions than your large corporate competitors. Furthermore, big data technology can help you respond to customer feedback quickly, enabling you to continually offer value to consumers whose tastes change consistently.
5. A Better Understanding of Your Sales Pipeline
You should always know the origin of your buyers. By analyzing previous successes, you can make informed decisions as to how to win over new and existing customers in the future.
Accordingly, you should track lead origins to determine whether they came from sources such as social media engagement and online reviews. You’ll also want to set up tracking for other marketing channels such as email campaigns, organic search engine results and your company blog. Once you know where your customers originate, you can dedicate more resources to those marketing channels to find more potential buyers.
6. Access to Powerful Business Intelligence
Business intelligence (BI) is about more than profit and loss. You can leverage it to uncover a wide range of insights, comprehensive analyses and inferences. Using big data technology, you can generate business intelligence that drives your organization toward desired objectives.
Data analysis increases the accuracy of executive decision-making. The enhanced insight made possible by data analysis is especially critical for SMBs who have less room for error compared to large corporations.
It may prove well worth it to invest in an online business analytics degree to learn how to take advantage of the wealth of information generated by your company’s digital assets. In a world where corporations are seemingly going after every revenue stream, knowledge of big data systems can give you the skills that you need to fend off the competition in a fiercely competitive landscape.
If you’re like most SMBs, you’re probably sitting on a ton of valuable data. Don’t let it go to waste. By leveraging cost-effective cloud-based analytics tools, you can develop valuable, data-informed strategies.
Forward-thinking entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the falling cost of big data tools to elevate their organizations to a new level of performance. By using big data tools to inform your decision-making process, you can provide value to new and existing buyers time and again.
Ryan Ayers is a researcher and consultant within multiple industries including information technology, blockchain and business development. Always up for a challenge, Ayers enjoys working with startups as well as Fortune 500 companies. When not at work, Ayers loves reading science fiction novels and watching the LA Clippers.
Analytics stock photo by NicoElNino/Shutterstock
