These days the concept of “Big Data” is becoming more and more popular. Companies are using Big Data to get a better understanding of who their consumer is and what they value. Some companies have even hired employees just to mine data.
Two examples I have been a part of in my career are Home Depot dotcom and bubba brands.
While I worked at Home Depot dotcom they had a full team dedicated to understanding how an online consumer shops, what their product preferences are, and how to best get them to the pages they are interested in. Since we were operating in an online environment the data was real time and easy to obtain. All of these analytics and upgrades have Home Depot dotcom positioned to be a top 10 online retailer by the end of 2014.
At bubba brands we do 95% of our sales through big box retailers so it is not as easy to become intimate with our consumer. In order to get closer to our consumer we have focus groups once a month throughout the country to understand what women look for when they purchase drinkware. We combine this qualitative data with the quantitative data to make real time decisions on product assortment and future product launches. This analysis has positioned us as the number one drinkware vendor in Wal-Mart.
The below article provides information on consumer analytics and how it is going to shape the market place in the future.
http://timoelliott.com/blog/2014/02/the-future-of-customer-analytics.html
How is your company using big data to better reach your end consumer?
I agree that Big Data is here to stay. Part of the struggle that I am finding is how to make sense of all of the data. Sure, we have every webpage mouse-click recorded, but what does all of that actually mean? Or in MP terms, so what?
For example, I sometimes wonder how Big Data trends might look for my own online shopping habits. Sure, I may have purchased a car part from Amazon, but that doesn’t mean that I want to see other car parts every time that I shop on Amazon. Essentially, how will these companies filter out this “noise”? I suspect that Home Depot’s ability to filter out the noise will grant them an advantage in the online sector.