As the golden quarter fast approaches, how can retailers ensure their offer is meeting customers’ changing shopping habits?

Predicting customer buying behaviour

Predicting customer buying behaviour

Visits and sales can be used to identify when customers are in the market, ready to buy

There are two key elements that retailers should focus on throughout the planning cycle to make marketing investments go further: allocating the right budget based on performance and building customer plans based on actual behaviour.

At the core of great customer planning is budget allocation; knowing how much to spend on online marketing and when, to improve profitability.

Retailers should create bespoke annual budget plans, allocating the right amount of money to the most important time of the year, such as the Christmas peak. Historical category demand will help retailers identify where there is most trade to be won throughout the year: it’s not always Christmas.

Retailers also need to look at when customers are most likely to purchase. Once you know how much budget you should invest in peak, use sales and cost-of-sales data to break down the budget week by week to maximise return on investment.

Retailers should examine how shoppers behave at Christmas in comparison with other times of year. Looking at Black Friday for example, device usage changes from mobile in the morning, desktop during the working day and tablet in the evening. Use these on-site analytics to predict how customers will behave.

Identifying customer behaviour

On the face of it customer planning might seem challenging as behaviour can appear unpredictable. Behavioural data sources can help retailers identify what really matters to customers and when.

Visits and sales can be used to identify when customers are in the market, ready to buy. Online, clicks on the website highlight when customers are deep in the research phase and want product information.

Items per basket will also shows whether customers are thinking about gifting for others or buying for themselves and the average order value helps identify sales of big ticket items and stocking fillers.

Conversion rates are indicative of when the last minute rush for presents has begun. Furthermore, changes in shopping behaviours, such as customers taking fewer days to buy from first click can support accurate campaign optimisation, reporting and forecasting.

By knowing the value of these key behavioural data points, retailers can then identify different customer phases through peak and market to them in response to ensure they maximise sales of their Christmas offer.

  • Martin Corcoran is head of insight consulting at online retailing specialist Summit