Retail success in the 21st century is multifaceted- today, brands and retailers can no longer rely on just one key metric of performance as trends, technology, and consumer demands grow and change exponentially year by year. However, the present-day challenge for brands and retailers is to sift through the increasingly competitive, complex, and ever-growing retail universe.
Consider the depth and scale of observations that retailers must maintain for every unique product to extract any valuable information – price, discount (if any), available sizes, brand, color, gender, fabric, material, in-stock, out-of-stock, analog, digital, etc. Attempting to monitor competition with anything less than a robust, powerful, and real-time software solutions suite is a laborious and tedious uphill climb for retailers.
A top-of-the-line retail analytics suite like Intelligence Node captures billions of data points from marketplaces across the globe to churn insights out of them. These insights are visualized on various retail dashboards throughout the platform to make for easy assimilation and quick action. The output is akin to an exhaustive market report, tailor-made for your brand and needs over time- and in real-time, allowing your team to track competitor activity and much more as it happens. Explore the scope of a retail dashboard for your brand below:
Price & Discount Analysis
Pictured above is a display of the average selling price of various product categories in the US fashion industry, as captured by the Intelligence Node retail dashboard. The price analysis section displays a selection of product pricing data- for example, the average price of a cardigan, that acts as a vantage point for retailers to adjust their own pricing according to the market average. As one of the most pivotal consumer touch points in retail, pricing intelligence can be used by retailers to tweak their ticket prices upwards or downwards basis the competition within categories that matter to them.
Discounts are a staple of the eCommerce industry. With retail analytics, it is easy to see what discounts different retailers and brands are applying on different categories.. Thus, average discounts across retailers and brands can be compared for competitiveness. In line with the screenshot above, a footwear brand displaying 10% discounts for its own offerings may choose to analyze discount and pricing data to gauge the effectiveness of the same. As the average discount of the footwear segment in this sample is 17%, the retailer can choose to alter or increase its average discount in order to remain at par with competing brands, and offer more attractive discounts to shoppers.
New Arrivals
Events such as new launches are significant to every retailer, as they present an opportunity to optimize visibility and prices on their marketplaces. In the above screenshot, you can study such new arrivals by category, and the scale of growth within each category over time. Competing retailers can assess these new offerings on the fly and assess whether they should stock similar items in their own catalogs. Likewise, retailers can identify gaps in their competitors’ catalogs and increase the visibility of those variants if they have them in stock.
Price Comparison Dashboard
In tandem with price analysis capabilities, Intelligence Node offers retailers comparison dashboards to monitor and analyze prices for various products across categories. Pictured below is a snippet of the same, where retailers may access pricing issues at a glance- alerting them to underpriced and overpriced items, such as the first item listed. State-of-the-art product matching software strengthens the accuracy of the same, enabling clients to embolden their pricing strategies with highly accurate insights.
Further, this software can help brands identify fraudulent sellers and MAP violations via MAP monitoring, by vetting products priced inaccurately on marketplaces and third-party websites, as pictured below. From this point, a brand may directly confront the issue with a deeper analysis into each violation.
Daily Summary Dashboard
The summary retail analytics dashboard gives a quick overview of what your closest competitors are up to. The above screenshot shows a dashboard for the fashion category across several top retailers in the US. According to the data displayed above, we are able to discern average discount rates and out-of-stock items for each of the listed brands, enabling brands and retailers to develop an informed, data-backed strategy for product offerings. You can customize the list of competitors that you need to track.
Category Overviews
Retail analytics makes it possible for brands and retailers to compare categories across multiple marketplaces, brands, and websites. Comparison can be done basis price differences, number of items, highest discounts, and more, helping brands and retailers keep tabs on their competitors across the globe. This space helps retailers compartmentalize data into simple, actionable visual data, summarized for convenience.
As seen below, a single screen displays immediate action items: price decreases in the ‘tops’ and ‘bikini’ sections, recently out-of-stock items, and how the brand in focus fares against average discounts.
Further, retail analytics breaks down categories into their various attributes and analyzes them to aid decision-making. Consider the below real-time retail dashboard which examines Amazon’s Shirts category. Cotton & Polyester seem to be the top materials of choice and the majority of them are of the button-down collar variety. Also, after multicolors, blue and black are the colors most favored by Amazon. This is just the kind of intelligence retailers need to plan their merchandise assortment and ensure that they are on the right path.
Trend & Insight
Over the calendar year, it is vital for retailers to maintain an overview of seasonal trends, new launches, shifting product preferences, and buying trends within the industry. With a real-time dashboard such as the one pictured below, retailers can access crucial insights: the latest competitor launches, new trends, such as ‘round neck’ collars’ increase in stock, and more as they appear in the market and avoid gaps in their assortment, missing key sales seasons, and allowing key products to fall behind.
Clear Concise Reports
Finally, with a massive set of data points and infinite aspects to monitor and optimize, Intelligence Node paves the way for quick, error-free output by providing our clients with simple, adjustable parameters that help efficiently navigate a sea of data. Fix your preferences and requirements to precise settings with just a few clicks to instantly generate actionable, reliable, and large-scale insights for your brand to integrate into its retail strategy.
For a walkthrough of all things retail analytics for your brand, book a demo today!
