Advancements in Digital Shelf Analytics mean that consumer brands have a better opportunity than ever before to achieve true, data-led growth in e-commerce. By improving online sales results while reducing the human effort it takes to grow at scale, these technologies add significant, measurable value. But if brands want to achieve optimal results, a robust user adoption strategy is critical. Equally, a solutions provider with a commitment to ongoing product innovation will have greater user engagement, maintaining the momentum of success. Partnering with a Digital Shelf Analytics provider that can help brands maintain engagement in the long term ultimately achieves better sales outcomes.
“What’s not to love about a tool that helps me save time and smash my sales targets?”
Our own customer engagement statistics show that increased usage of eStoreCheck (our digital shelf analytics platform) increases a brand’s overall e-commerce performance score by up to 45%. This directly reflects the Perfect Store formula that leads to increased sales.
Without revealing all the ingredients of our secret sauce, here are a few things to think about when partnering with your e-commerce analytics provider:
Can I create relevant reporting for each of my users?
It seems like a no-brainer that dashboards should be personalized so that users, by default, focus on their own opportunities and risks. Most providers offer some level of customization although different providers will have greater degrees of flexibility.
Having customizable views is particularly relevant when it comes to engaging KAMs. Dedicating time to customizing dashboards by e-retailer so that KAMs can adjust KPIs, view products by individual performance, across the whole portfolio, or within groups, ensures they focus on their priority actions. Handing them an auto-generated To-Do list helps them sift through high volumes of data to quickly see what their daily actions should be. Not only does it save time, it helps them improve their personal performance and do a better job.
For example, data from our eStoreCheck digital shelf monitoring platform shows that brands with more than 750 visits to dashboards (that had been customized for KAMs), compared to those with only 150 visits (five times fewer in the same period of time) had greater overall performance scores - up to 45%!
Just imagine that number translated into sales figures.... Personalized intelligence increases engagement and gets results.
Is Product Innovation ‘Always On’?
How closely is your e-commerce analytics provider working with your teams, using technical expertise to enhance the reporting, making the insights more relevant, streamlining processes, but most importantly, feeding back improvements to the product innovation team. Without a clear process for user-led innovation, the platform is at risk of standing still and users at risk of ‘fatigue’.
How do the service provision and the product capabilities evolve as my e-commerce needs grow?
Brands who are in the early stages of their e-commerce journey should beware of providers who offer them an All-At-Once type approach to rolling out a sophisticated system. Instead, some providers recommend a kind of ‘Walk, Run, Fly’ approach to onboarding. This type of model can be useful for matching (and increasing) the levels of capability of the platform with the overall (growing) experience of the team.
In the earliest stages of implementation, it's important to make sure your provider can get three things right:
- Have a strategy that allows users to realize value at the earliest possible moment: brands that use eStoreCheck see first data-sets in 4-12 weeks (depending on the volume of SKUs and markets being tracked) and first sales improvements in 100 days or less.
- Automate as much of the onboarding process as possible to reduce human effort and human error. Aim for Zero Touch maintenance to ensure the platform stays relevant to evolving business needs.
- Surround the program with success factors such as robust data collection practices and a great support framework that includes hands-on training, self-help resources, project managers, and technical expertise.
If you are not convinced your current provider can help you sustain growth, or if you’d like to hear a bit more about our success initiatives, please get in touch.
