ShopperTrak: Understanding consumer behavior top retailer challenge

Understanding shopping and buying behavior is the most common challenge facing retailers. According to a survey of nearly 200 retailers, executives, financial analysts, industry analysts and university academics at the recent ShopperTrak users group conference, 44% of attendees reported that understanding consumer behavior in-store is currently their biggest challenge.

This was followed by using big data to make business decisions (25%), omnichannel pressure (17%), staying up to date on the latest technologies (12%), and merchandising and store design (2%).

Other notable findings include:

• Conversion trumps all other measurements. Seventy-nine percent of attendees report that conversion rate is the most important metric to their company. This was followed by traffic (17.5%) and units per transaction (2.5%). 


• Holiday measurement preparation has begun. Sixty-four percent of attendees said they have started or plan to implement in-store analytics programs for holiday 2014. More than one-third (36%) have not yet implemented in-store analytics programs to prepare for holiday 2014.


• When it comes to in-store analytics technology, retailers are more familiar with some technologies than others:


• Sixty-six percent are very or somewhat familiar with BLE/iBeacon, while 84% are very or somewhat familiar with BlueTooth. 


• Thirty-nine percent are very unfamiliar or not familiar with mobile wallet. On the flip side, 57% are very or somewhat familiar with mobile wallet. 


• Forty percent are very likely to implement BLE/iBeacon, BlueTooth, Wifi in the next 12 months.
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