Retail Mapping Has a Direct Influence on Revenue and Here’s Why

Featured article by Osama, Technology Content Strategist

The contemporary era is seeing a boom in ecommerce with businesses of all shapes and sizes venturing into the online space to sell their products and services. The growth can be seen by the fact that in the year 2020 alone, worldwide ecommerce growth rates hit 16.3 percent. In order to make a mark in this extremely competitive landscape, it has become imperative for retail stores to be equipped with the latest technology. 

As the world of shopping continues to evolve, so too does the way that retail businesses need to operate their stores and merchandise. In fact, one of the most significant changes that have taken place in recent years is the way in which businesses map out their stores.

Retail mapping has become increasingly important as it can have a direct influence on revenue. This article discusses the reasons why retail mapping is so important and its relation with the revenue a business makes. 

Helps in Strategic Decision-Making

In the past, this type of data was difficult and expensive to collect. But with advances in technology, it is now possible for businesses of all sizes to take advantage of the features of retail mapping tools such as the usage of spatial data.

Spatial data helps in expanding and identifying new opportunities. It also provides a better understanding of customer behavior, which helps businesses make more informed strategic decisions about where to open new stores, where to relocate, and how to optimize their overall operations.

This data can also be used to understand catchment areas, store performance, customer demographics, and other important factors that impact the revenue of retail outlets.

Predict Revenues Easily

Retail mapping allows you to monitor your performance over a certain period of time. Analysts make use of spatial data catalogs that assists them in identifying patterns and trends, understanding the impact of marketing campaigns, monitoring the competition, and predicting future revenues.

The information used can include data about store locations, customer data, Point-of-sale (POS) data and even data from the competitors. 

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Retail mapping means analytics that can include site selection, geomarketing, segmentation, logistics, supply chain optimization and portfolio analysis.

This way you can answer important business questions which can help in making better decisions that potentially lead to an increase in revenue.

All of this information is essential for businesses that want to stay ahead of the curve and make the most out of their investments. 

Find Your Next Best Site 

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Planning to expand is one thing that is directly related to increasing revenues for your business. However, an increase in revenue is also highly dependent on choosing the right location for your new store.

Retail mapping can help you do just that.

This tool can be used to identify high-traffic areas, understand the competition, and find potential sites that fit your specific criteria. You can also gauge the performance of the newly opened store by monitoring assets such as inventory and the logistics needed to help run the place.

In addition to that, if you wish to open a warehouse it is helpful to choose the optimal location. Your best bet would be having a warehouse that is closer to a retail outlet which has higher sales as compared to the other retail outlets and, therefore, require frequent replenishing (the different colored dots signify the revenue of stores at different locations). 

There are other factors involved in deciding where to open up a new office, store or warehouse such as the availability of human resources etc. However, there are times when you need to solidify the basis of your decision with the help of data mapped out for you.    

Optimize Your Supply Chain 

One of the challenges of today is to keep up with the ever-changing consumer expectations. New stocks become popular and preferences of customers change constantly, so it is important to have a flexible and efficient supply chain.

Retail mapping can help you optimize your supply chain by identifying potential areas for expansion, understanding customer behavior, and making better decisions about where to locate your warehouses and distribution centers.

Imagine not knowing the delivery time, total route time and the exact roads and networks that will be used in when inventory is being delivered to different stores. Without this information, it is nearly impossible to estimate the lowest possible cost needed to serve your network.

This is where location intelligence and network intelligence is combined with retail mapping. Logical clusters of stores can be created using spatial cluster analysis. This technique can help in creating distinct groups of stores defined by certain criteria and then clustering the accounts based on those metrics to get a good sense of the way the stores perform.

You can also find the most efficient routes from a starting point to a set of different locations. The starting point could be a warehouse and retail stores could be the different locations where products need to be delivered.

Routing optimization engines for your operations help you make sure that your products are delivered to the right place, at the right time.

In this way, you improve the efficiency that helps you cut down costs and boost your revenue figures.  

Your Indoor Mapping Becomes Efficient 

Location data, and geolocation in other words, when used in an indoor environment can help in optimizing layouts. The benefit of this technology is that it can be used to identify patterns that are not possible to see with the naked eye.

How geolocation works is that it uses sensors to constantly monitor the position of people or assets in a given space. The data collected is then used to generate heatmaps that can be used to understand patterns of how customers move about in your stores.

This data will help you understand how customers move about in your store and what sections they spend most of their time in. You can also find out which products are placed next to each other and if they complement each other.

Moreover, you can also find out the average time a customer spends in your store and use that information to improve the overall experience.

All of this information is crucial in terms of making your store more efficient and help in increasing the revenue.

Manage Your Stores Remotely

With the increase of the hybrid and work-from-home culture, there is a need to manage your business remotely. Often the decision-makers are not at the location where operations take place. This can be done using retail mapping as it offers a bird’s eye view of all your stores in one place.

You can monitor the performance of each store in terms of sales, inventory, and customer traffic. With this data, you can make better decisions about where to allocate your resources, all while managing from a remote location.

Retail mapping tools seamlessly integrate with cloud data platforms and analytics tools. The platforms have options of SaaS and storing data on private or public clouds which can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

Moreover, visualizations help you answer business questions. Imagine having all data consolidated in a single application and unlike previous days, you do not have to ask your employees questions about your retail outlet to understand the operations or any challenges that occur. You have all the answers in front of you waiting to be analyzed.

This saves time and offers more clarity into the overall operations of your business.

You can also use this data to understand which store is underperforming and needs more attention. In this way, you can manage your stores more efficiently and improve your overall performance. 

Summing Up The Importance of Retail Mapping

Retail mapping allows businesses to more effectively plan their store layouts. This, in turn, can lead to more efficient use of space and can allow businesses to better showcase their merchandise. 

Additionally, retail mapping can help businesses track customer traffic patterns and understand which areas of the store are most popular. This information can be used to make strategic decisions about store layout and merchandising.

Overall, retail mapping is a critical tool for any business that wants to be successful in today’s competitive marketplace. From helping in making strategic decisions to forecasting revenue and optimizing your supply chain, it helps in improving your revenue.

In short, retail mapping provides you with all the necessary information consolidated in one place that can help your retail business keep up with the competition.

Author Bio:

Osama is a technology content strategist who is passionate about content marketing and all things SEO. He has helped various companies rank their content on the first page of search engines. In his free time, Osama loves to play football and travel.