Big data offers big bucks for online retailers

BANGALORE, INDIA: It is party time now that Christmas is here and New Year is just round the corner. The holiday mood has set in and people are on a shopping spree. Fresh stocks are back on store shelves and retailers have pulled up their socks so as to make hay (quick bucks), when the sun (holiday season) shines.

Of late, many people have turned to online when it comes to shopping for the sheer convenience, choice and service it offers. Now people need not brave the cold or shove ice off their pavement to be on the streets making their annual Christmas or New Year shopping. For, now shopping on an online retailer's shop or e-commerce website, which are at your service 24/7 offering best deals, is just a click away.

And, for their part, online retailers are also becoming competitive and in order to outsmart the other, who is also in the fray to attract the same lot of shoppers who have just logged in, are on the look out for means to make the best. Thus, online retailers are making use of innovative sales/marketing tactics, based on user behaviour, to ensure they get noticed. This is where big data analytics comes into the picture.

For those who do not know what big data analytics is, it is the analysis of digital information that comes in the form videos, photos, texts etc and is gathered from online media, or social media or any sort of media for that matter. It can be used for many purposes such as to study user behaviour, or to gather feedback about a company or on its products, or to know what sort of searches are you making currently etc.

So, do not be surprised if you come across deals that went off air after a few hours or about the reappearance of items that were said to be 'sold out' or when expensive items go cheap in a span of just a few days. It is all based on your own, (read it online shoppers'), search queries and is becoming increasingly a common phenomenon in the age of big data analytics.

Internet is today tailored and targeted at uses. In order to make the best use of websites, especially e-commerce websites, do not mind adopting certain techniques to get information about visitors based on their browsing history, or online activities, or e-mails sent to them and then delivering tailor-made offers to them.

In certain circumstances such activities are undertaken in real time basis so that the results are quicker, thus helping retailers to know what sort of people are shopping currently and what are they looking for. It also gives them information like what sort of things under which price range and other specifics

Some retailers also play it smart when it comes to pricing their stuff. That is why the same product can appear on different store shelves for various price depending on the price range at which searches were made or what sort of products were searched for etc.on both individual and majority basis. Thisis how they make themselves noticed amidst all the 'sales' and 'flat offs'

So, the next time you come across price disparity or do not find what you want blame it on big data and move on and there are chances that while you are searching for the same item on a different website the former tries to woo you back with information of some items that match your query.

And, this time if you end up with the best deal do not forget to thank big data because it was working day-in and day-out, unnoticed by you, in order to bring out the best result as per your requirement. And that is the power of big data.