Retail Data is Affordable: True or False?
The retail industry is ever-growing, with new businesses sprouting rapidly, in all respective lines of work. SMEs have found it especially difficult to compete with top players in the industry because bigger companies have the tools and resources to gain leverage over these micro-industries. Their continuous successes may be largely due to the size of their manpower and access to the latest technologies, but in reality, knowledge overpowers money – it doesn’t take a lot of wealth to discover great insights into your business’ performance.
Your Receipts Are More Valuable Than You Think
“Since data is traditionally targeted to bigger businesses, smaller retailers consider it to be something that they cannot afford,” says Vernon Chua, CEO of SYCARDA Malaysia. This creates a gap between the mega retailers and the smaller ones, hindering these start-ups from eventually achieving economies of scale.
According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, it is stated that approximately 20 per cent of start-ups would have failed in their first year upon opening, and a further 30 per cent failed by the end of their second year.
What most SMEs don’t see is that the power of success is right under their noses. It’s within the data collected – from receipts and from their POS hardware.
Most retailers already collect data from their receipts — they just don’t know what to make of it yet.
Bridging The Data Gap
Big data analytics corporations like Oracle, SAP, and IBM recognised this data gap and developed various kinds of business intelligence software as a solution. By leveraging this software, retailers can analyse large data sets to identify patterns, opportunities, and risks.
Nonetheless, most data analytics companies require cleaned-up data to be processed, which can be tedious for a smaller business to sift through. Business intelligence or data analytics software can also be relatively costly, especially for SMEs.
In response to this problem, Innergia Labs created a more affordable option for data collection and analytics – SYCARDA. With this software, there isn’t a need for retailers to invest in new hardware or provide different data sets to view their data in the provided visual formats because it is a scalable, platform-independent software that sits on a point-of-sale (POS) system — allowing for a more efficient and hassle-free implementation process.
By leveraging SYCARDA, retailers can easily garner information on their best-selling products, times of purchase, outlet locations, product pairings, and so on. Just like SAP business intelligence software, these insights can be used to identify patterns and trends, allowing retailers to gain a better understanding of their consumers and make smarter business decisions.
Innergia Labs has helped more than 1000 businesses (supermarkets, F&B, pharmacies, fashion) all around the world in gaining more knowledge about their data, allowing them to foster a stronger relationship with their customer bases and scale up their businesses faster.
The Importance of Sales Receipt Data in Boosting Profitability and Growth
As aforementioned, transaction data gathered from sales receipts are extremely valuable assets in business growth.
For an average customer, sales receipts may seem rather useless aside from their record-keeping purposes, but for data analytics companies, these pieces of paper hold valuable insights that can guide business owners in strategising more suitable and effective plans for their companies.
What a Single Receipt Could Do For You
Vernon believes that SMEs and retailers need to learn and adapt to current demands to remain relevant. With each receipt generated by a transaction made to your business, comes a world of valuable insight into a buyer’s pattern and behaviour. You will be able to piece together key information like what kind of items are most preferred, when they are most likely to purchase, how much they are willing to pay, and which product pairings work best. Supported by the powerful insights gained from their sales receipt data, retailers will be able to make better data-driven decisions and create an accurate sales forecast which will boost profitability and business growth.
Unfortunately, most SMEs have stuck to manually collecting and collating sales receipt data, unaware of the availability of the real-time business analytics tools that are provided by companies like SYCARDA. Not only is manual collection of data tedious, but it can also be largely inaccurate as there is no system to it and is prone to human errors. On top of that, the ramifications of miscalculations can lead to even more laborious and expensive processes to undo them.
Instead of manual data collection, investing in a system like SYCARDA will help you better understand your business potential while allowing you to focus on your core business functions. SYCARDA is designed to automatically collect sales receipt data from each point of sale (POS) of a business and transfer them to a cloud for analysis. Users can get real-time business analytics by accessing their user-friendly web portal and will be notified if there are any suspicious transactions in order to prevent fraudulent purchasing.
Retailers don’t have to worry about spending money on new hardware or software, because SYCARDA is a plug-and-play architecture that sits on top of a retailer’s existing POS infrastructure, allowing for a fast and user-oriented installation process across multiple outlets without disrupting their operations.
SYCARDA can be adopted across various retail sectors that operate with a POS such as supermarkets, fashion retailers, pharmacies, F&B, and so on.
So, if you’re interested in scaling up your business by leveraging your sales receipt data, reach out to us to book your demo!
FAQ
How does the retail industry store data?
The retail industry stores data using an array of methods such as databases, cloud-based storage, and data warehouses. Data can be collected from different sources such as point-of-sale (POS) systems, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and inventory management systems. This data can then be processed, analysed, and stored in structured formats for future use.
Why is customer data important in retail?
Customer data can be interpreted to give businesses a better grasp of their consumers’ buying behaviour. This information can not only be used to improve customer experiences but it can also be used in areas like tailoring marketing efforts and making informed business decisions. By analysing customer data, retailers can also identify trends and opportunities for growth, as well as detect potential issues before they become significant problems.
