Leading Retail Business Analytics Solution

Reporting and analytics are essential to retail because they tell business owners precisely what’s happening in their company, from customer trends to inventory reports. With the significant shift in customer behavior since the pandemic, having a firm grasp on your business data is even more critical. The EY US Future Consumer Index found 54 percent of Americans agree that the new behaviors adopted during the pandemic now feel normal. Retail business analytics offer insights to help businesses keep up with changing customer expectations and demands in real time.

While there are several options for business analytics, finding a solution with features made for retail is essential. Power BI is a suite of analytics and data visualization tools offered by Microsoft for Business Intelligence (BI). Many top operations use Power BI because of its best-in-class analytics capabilities. Read on to learn why The General Store partners with Microsoft to provide Power BI when choosing which software to provide to their retailers.

Easy-to-Understand Data

Having access to your data and understanding that data are two completely different aspects. As a retailer, your retail business analytics solution shouldn’t require you to be an expert statistician. In addition, many small retailers rely on spreadsheets or other legacy systems to manage data. This manual approach is prone to errors and can make it challenging to piece data together in a meaningful way.

With Power BI for retail, you get quick access to easy-to-understand data and insights. Power BI transforms raw data into:

• Actionable insights
• Interactive reports and quickly consumable dashboards
  
• A 360-degree view of what’s happening across the organization

Customer Trends

Today’s customers demand great retail products but also expect quality service to go along with them. To keep your retail operation competitive, you need visibility into the customer insights, patterns, and purchasing predictions to change with them. Power BI for retail helps keep a pulse on customer trends and offers data to get you asking the right questions about your business. Here are just a few customer insights that Power BI offers:

• Purchase patterns
• Demographics or zip code reporting
  
• Promotion effectiveness

One way retailers can benefit from the customer trends report is by leveraging zip code reporting. For example, let’s imagine you have two store locations in a 20-mile radius, and one store significantly outperforms the other. Power BI can analyze customer data by zip code to find which store most customers live closest to. From there, your data might reveal customers live in between the stores and are choosing one over the other, so you can begin digging deeper.

Inventory and Product Performance

While understanding your customers is crucial, so is gaining insights into your inventory performance. Power BI offers retail-specific reports to help business owners understand critical metrics with reports like Daily Sales Flash, Color & Size Analysis, and Customer Churn Analysis. These retail inventory reports allow business owners to tune into market demands and adjust inventories to fit their customers’ needs. With more precise insights into what’s selling and what’s not, retailers can reduce unnecessary stock and operate seamlessly. Plus, you’ll be empowered to prevent stock-outs from occurring, especially for top-selling products.

Inventory and product analytics go hand in hand with inventory optimization. Mobile POS solutions like the Unitech EA520 and Datalogic Memor 10 can take your inventory management to the next level by working with retail business analytics to ensure optimal inventory levels. In addition, mobile tools make inventory tracking a breeze.

Multi-Store Management

As a retailer, expansion means your business is succeeding. However, keeping each store consistent with the brand’s reputation and delivering uncompromising service to every customer can be challenging.

Power BI for retail offers remote and host store data so business owners can review their store performance from any location on a PC, iOS, or Android device. You’ll gain access to retail business analytics trends in sales, inventory, and margins and improve your processes across all your stores. With The General Store, you can optimize up to 10 locations and ensure a consistent customer experience at every store.

Get Started With Power BI for Retail

In the current, ever-evolving retail market, businesses that are staying competitive understand the following to be success factors:

• Deep knowledge of customer trends, purchase patterns, and inventory performance
• Deliver the right product at an optimum price
  

With retail business analytics, you’ll ensure your store never falls behind. The General Store is a Microsoft Power BI partner that has implemented this retail business analytics solution for small retailers in various markets. As a result, clients achieved superior customer experiences and higher sales targets. Looking to deploy a retail Power BI solution to your business? Get started now and set your store up for success.