With the rise of digital technology, data-driven fashion brands can now unmask customer intent, leveraging website analytics to gain insights into their customers’ behaviour and preferences. This data-driven approach allows brands to tailor their offerings to meet the needs and desires of their customers, to drive sales and customer satisfaction.
Understanding Website Analytics
Website analytics can be a powerful tool that allows businesses to collect, report, and analyse their website data. This data provides insight into how users interact with a website, including the pages they visit, the length of time they spend on the site, and the actions they take during their visit.
For fashion brands, website analytics can reveal important information about customer preferences and shopping behaviour. For example, by analysing the pages that customers visit most frequently, brands identify popular products/trends. Alternatively, companies can also identify potential barriers to purchase and work to eliminate them.
The Role of Data in Fashion
With the ability to collect and analyse large amounts of data, fashion brands can make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and customer engagement.
The fashion industry benefits significantly from using data to personalise the customer experience. By understanding individual customer preferences and shopping behaviour, brands tailor their offerings to meet the needs of each customer. Leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Identifying Trends from Website Analytics
Analysing website analytics, brands can identify which products present as most popular with their customers. This information can be used to inform product development and marketing strategies.
To no one’s surprise, Pinterests maintains its reign as champion of user analytics. With 482 million monthly active users, Pinterest curates their very own consumer-data trend report, Pinterest Predicts. The platform’s ability to predict trends can be attributed to its analysis of user search data and machine learning. A reported 80% accuracy in its predictions over the past four years. Pinterest Predicts provides valuable insights for businesses. Allowing businesses to create content based on trending topics or keywords, thus targeting only interested users with specific trends.
As a result of their staggering prediction-skill success, Pinterest launched its first pop-up store in NYC. Featuring a shoppable curation of its 2024 trends predictions. The immersive shop lasts five days and feature dozens of products. Tying to the 23 trends identified by Pinterest, from jellyfish-inspired home decor to ‘eclectic grandpa’ fashion inspiration.
Personalising the Customer Experience Using Website Analytics
Analysing individual customer behaviour, brands can tailor their offerings to meet the needs of each customer. This can include personalised product recommendations, targeted marketing messages, and customised shopping experiences.
ASOS, a well-known UK-based e-commerce fashion brand.
The company leverages personalisation on product pages to assist customers in finding the right fit. Recommending the best size based on the customer’s height, weight, or fitting preference (in addition to tailoring their search around preferred brand type). This approach not only enhances the customer experience but addresses fit-related return issues.
The company’s AI team, comprising Machine Learning Engineers and Data Scientists, dedicates themselves to enhancing the customer experience, improve retail efficiency, and drive growth. ASOS’s personalisation system plays a crucial role in presenting the right product to the right customer at the right time, considering its extensive catalogue, which includes around 100,000 items at any given time and introduces hundreds of new items weekly. ASOS’ commitment to personalisation and the use of advanced analytics have contributed to its success, reporting a 329% increase in profits during the COVID-19 crisis.
Implementing Website Analytics for a Data-Driven Approach
Implementing a data-driven approach in fashion involves several key steps.
Brands must collect data – this can be done using website analytics, customer surveys or point of sale. After collecting the data, it must be analysed to identify patterns and trends; the insights gained from the data analysis must be used to inform decision-making.
Implementing a data-driven approach requires a commitment to ongoing data collection and analysis. furthermore, As customer preferences and trends evolve, brands must continually collect and analyse data to stay ahead of the curve.
Collecting Data
The first step in implementing a data-driven approach involves collecting data. This can be done through a variety of methods: website analytics, customer surveys, and social media analytics. The overall focus should be collecting data with relevancy to the brand’s goals and objectives.
For instance, if a brand aims to increase sales of a specific product, it can collect data on the product’s views and purchases. Similarly, if a brand seeks to enhance customer satisfaction, it can gather data from customer feedback and reviews.
Analysing Data
Once collected, data must become analysed to identify patterns and trends. This can be done using data analysis tools and software e.g., AI or ML. Utilising AI can help with data analysis enable organisations to forecast future outcomes with a higher degree of accuracy.
If the data analysis shows that a frequently viewed but rarely purchased product, the brand may investigate further to determine the reason. Likewise, if the data analysis indicates that a specific marketing message increases sales, the brand may use that message in future marketing campaigns.
Using Data to Inform Decision-Making
Fashion companies harnessing the power of data analysis, can perform informed decision-making. Thus, leading to potential changes in product development, marketing strategies, and customer engagement tactics. This proactive approach allows for the creation of personalised and targeted marketing, enhanced customer segmentation, and the utilisation of predictive analytics to improve return on investment.
When the data analysis reveals that a particular style of dress becomes popular with customers, the brand can choose to develop more products in that style. Similarly, if the data analysis shows that personalised product recommendations lead to increased sales. The brand can opt to implement a personalised recommendation feature on its website.
Conclusion
In the realm of fashion, data reigns supreme, serving as a pivotal tool for trend identification and informed decision-making. Fashion brands can gain valuable insights into their customer’s behaviour and preference by leveraging website analytics. This data-driven approach allows brands to tailor their offerings to meet the needs of their customers, ultimately driving sales and customer satisfaction.