Retail Channel Optimization in a World of Digital Transformation

This eBook explores how retailers rely on data science and analytics to enable decisions that bridge both the physical and digital and inform an omnichannel approach.

Overview

With rapidly evolving consumer preferences creating a groundswell of digital transformation in retail, organizations need the confidence to make better, faster decisions. This inherently means having access to trusted data which provides maximum accuracy, consistency, and context. Data integrity becomes key and this is especially true when it comes to data-driven decision making around retail site selection and channel optimization.

Site selection is the process of assessing the suitability of a potential retail location and forecasting the financial return on that investment. By leveraging objective data and unbiased retail analytics, retailers are able to model the financial performance of potential locations with a high degree of accuracy. Of course, site selection is no longer a siloed planning process, but is part of a broader channel optimization strategy which balances both online and offline opportunity.

While the “gut instinct” approach to site selection may work some of the time, particularly for smaller retailers with fewer locations, it simply cannot work at scale, and it doesn’t serve companies well when they expand outside of a familiar existing market area. For companies with hundreds or thousands of stores, a data-driven approach is essential, especially against the backdrop of a global pandemic and the planning complexities this brings. Increasingly we are seeing retailers rely on data science and analytics to enable decisions that bridge both the physical and digital and inform an omnichannel approach.