Harness Ecommerce Predictive Analytics to Boost Sales and Customer Retention

The growth of online shopping set the stage for marketers wanting better business intelligence.

This trend is particularly evident in the fashion accessories sector. According to a report by Grand View Research, the global ecommerce market size for fashion accessories alone was valued at USD 182.0 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.7% from 2022 to 2028. This explosive ecommerce growth has driven demand for advanced data analytics capabilities.

To capitalise on this burgeoning market, businesses are turning to sophisticated tools and strategies.

Among these tools, ecommerce predictive analytics has become table stakes for marketers wishing to map future outcomes based on customer behaviours.

The impact of such data-driven approaches can be significant. According to McKinsey, CPG companies that embrace data-driven marketing at scale can increase net sales value by 3 to 5 percent and marketing efficiency by 10 to 20 percent — if they do it well.

Given these potential benefits, it's clear why data analytics has become crucial in the industry. Ecommerce business leaders can only make informed decisions with solid data and good data analysis. Predictive analytics allows companies to be proactive on both fronts.

What is ecommerce predictive analytics?

Ecommerce predictive analytics uses historical and current data and advanced algorithms to forecast future trends and behaviours. This process helps businesses anticipate customer needs, optimise marketing and supply chain operations and make data-driven decisions, leading to growth and profitability in a competitive market.

Predictive analytics is a branch of advanced data analytics that combines statistical modelling, data mining, and machine learning to predict future outcomes. By identifying patterns in large datasets, companies can uncover risks and opportunities.

Benefits of predictive analytics in ecommerce

Predictive analytics is crucial in ecommerce for forecasting customer behaviour, refining marketing strategies, and enhancing operational efficiency. Businesses can reduce costs and increase profitability by predicting future demand and optimising logistics.

Mature ecommerce sites benefit from rich historical sales data, enabling deeper customer insights and data-driven decision-making. Advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms identify patterns in big data, allowing businesses to improve customer service, sales, operations, and marketing strategies for better outcomes.

Predictive analytics is a powerful tool in the hands of ecommerce businesses and is revolutionising how online stores map the customer journey. Here’s how:

Customer personalisation and segmentation.

By analysing your customers’ browsing history, past purchases, and even how long they linger on certain product pages, these smart systems can predict what a customer might want to buy next.

Optimised marketing strategies.

It's not just about product suggestions. Predictive analytics allows businesses to craft marketing messages that speak directly to their customer preferences. This personalised approach tends to resonate more, leading to higher engagement and more sales.

Reduced customer churn.

These personalised product recommendations aren't just a neat trick — they're incredibly effective at keeping customers returning for more. Who wouldn’t want to stay on a page when the shopping experience feels tailor-made?

Operational efficiency.

Predictive analytics is making businesses smarter and more efficient. Instead of guessing what might happen, companies can now anticipate and prepare for future scenarios. It helps you make smarter decisions, reduce unnecessary costs and boost those all-important profit margins. Having this kind of foresight isn't just nice to have — it's becoming essential to stay competitive in the ecommerce landscape.

Improved inventory management and forecasting.

Take inventory management, for instance. It's like having a crystal ball for your stock levels. Predictive analytics helps forecast demand accurately and optimise inventory levels. This means faster order fulfilment, better use of warehouse space and no more dreaded "out-of-stock" messages that send customers running to competitors.

Applications of predictive analytics in ecommerce

Predictive analytics for ecommerce leans heavily on machine learning to make data-driven forecasts. It powers a wide range of applications and involves training predictive models on large datasets to improve accuracy over time. 

Popular enterprise ecommerce sites like Target, Walmart, Amazon, Etsy and BestBuy, are likely candidates to benefit from this technology because of their vast customer base. Newer, smaller ecommerce sites may have less data to work with.

Customer lifetime value (CLV).

Recommendation engines are common on top-tier ecommerce sites. Cross-selling based on ratings from other buyers and upselling based on prior purchases are familiar tactics frequent online shoppers see. This increases the average order value (AOV), leading to greater CLV.

Inventory management insights.

Inventory management is all about predicting future outcomes based on historical data. This is as much of an art as a science, but predictive analytics is a tool that has removed a lot of guessing. It can predict more specific market trends related to inventory needs. It aims to answer questions like "What will this customer likely buy next?" or "How much stock do we need next month?"

Customer segmentation.

Customer segmentation represents a powerful application of predictive analytics and machine learning in ecommerce. This technique divides potential customers into groups based on various data points, including social media activity, online purchase history, search behaviour and other relevant big data. Machine learning algorithms then analyse these segments to identify patterns and predict future purchasing behaviour.

Dynamic pricing adoption.

While there are ethical aspects to dynamic pricing, shifts in supply and demand are happening more often and more quickly. Companies are trying to be more dynamic with their pricing strategies as a result. Predictive analytics can help to optimise pricing in real-time by analysing large volumes of data to inform pricing decisions. Our integration with Google BigQuery supports AI-powered pricing with its machine learning algorithms.

Customer satisfaction and retention.

Conventional wisdom suggests that customer satisfaction leads to repeat business. According to Gartner, satisfaction doesn’t predict loyalty very well. They found that the key to customer retention and customer loyalty “depends on how easy you make it for your customers to do business with you.” 

Giving customers what they want when they want it is the penultimate goal of ecommerce sites that strive to be top of mind. Predictive analytics can help businesses achieve that with its many customer touchpoints.

Improving marketing campaigns.

Businesses can create highly targeted marketing campaigns by using customer segmentation. Each customer segment receives personalised ads tailored to their preferences and habits, likely improving conversion rates. This data-driven approach allows companies to optimise their marketing efforts, focusing resources on the most promising leads and potentially boosting sales efficiency.

How BigCommerce helps businesses make data-driven decisions

At every touchpoint, shoppers generate valuable data — but it's often incomplete, inconsistent and hard to access. BigCommerce is here to bring your data into focus. With our new Big Data Open Solutions, you'll have the data you need to get a unified view of your business and customers.

Here’s how.

Store and connect your data.

Each customer your business attracts is as unique as their fingerprint. So is their data.

You have full control of how you use that data — from data warehouses, BI tools, customer data platforms and analytics to personalisation solutions. BigCommerce also offers native integration with Google BigQuery which can significantly enhance predictive analytics capabilities like real-time analytics, scalability, fraud detection and data integration.

Enterprise-level analytics.

Tools like Google BigQuery and Microsoft Power BI integration can handle massive datasets quickly, allowing businesses to analyse vast amounts of historical sales, customer behaviour and inventory data to identify patterns and trends.

Unify data for actionable insights.

Big Data Open Solutions breaks down your data silos, giving you a single view of business data. It can easily combine data from various sources e.g., website traffic, social media and inventory management systems, to improve prediction accuracy.

Open and extensible.

Our solution supports the use of open data platforms to enhance reporting and decision-making. You can connect, integrate and transfer store data to any partner technology and receive a holistic view of the business. 

Maximise business impact. 

Ignite the true power of your data to learn how your store performs. With these analytics tools at hand, you can improve your online advertising, create personalised shopping experiences and merchandising strategies and deliver better customer experiences. 

Better yet, with its pay-per-query pricing model, using Google BigQuery can be more cost-effective for businesses compared to maintaining data warehouses on-site.

Real-world use cases

Seeing is believing. There’s something special about success stories a business can emulate. Predictive analytics can boost revenue, mitigate risk and streamline operations for almost any industry. Here are examples of companies successfully using predictive analytics in ecommerce. 

Sephora and customer segmentation.

The beauty brand, Sephora, uses predictive analytics for personalised product recommendations and inventory management. By analysing browsing behaviour, purchase history and customer preferences they can provide highly relevant recommendations. This hyper-relevance — when a customer is ready to buy — boosts revenue and increases CLV.

Netflix and purchase and churn prediction.

Subscription-based ecommerce companies, like Netflix, use predictive analytics to target specific demographics likely to cancel subscriptions, allowing them to take proactive customer engagement measures. Personalised marketing to determine optimal email send times and retargeting online ads are two ways Netflix uses data to predict a greater likelihood of conversions and purchase intent.

ClearSafe and fraud detection.

ClearSale has positioned itself as a leader in ecommerce fraud protection, consistently ranking #1 on platforms like G2. They combine human analysis with robust artificial intelligence to identify emerging fraud patterns. Their approach demonstrates the power of predictive analytics in creating a more secure online shopping environment while minimising false positives that could impact legitimate customers.

Amazon and operational improvement.

Amazon excels at leveraging predictive analytics. They have been able to significantly improve their operational efficiency, reduce costs and enhance the customer experience as a result. This data-driven approach has been a key factor in Amazon's ability to scale its ecommerce operations and maintain a competitive edge in the market.

They have even patented a system called "anticipatory shipping" that predicts what customers are likely to purchase before they place an order. This allows them to move products closer to potential buyers in advance, reducing delivery times.

Amazon is always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in ecommerce — this is what makes them the envy of the industry.

The final word

Ecommerce predictive analytics represents a turning point for online businesses looking for a competitive advantage. By tapping into past and real-time data, along with cutting-edge algorithms, companies can predict trends, tailor customer experiences, manage inventory smarter and make better-informed decisions.

BigCommerce’s Big Data Open Solutions provides a powerful platform that helps businesses fully unlock the potential of ecommerce predictive analytics. It allows them to capture data from different sources, gain valuable insights and drive greater business results.

As ecommerce continues to evolve, predictive analytics will be even more vital in boosting growth, streamlining operations and elevating customer satisfaction in the digital marketplace.

Get started with Big Open Data Solutions and drive your business forward.

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