Retail innovation: how to use payment data to increase business
To increase their business, retailers have access to a real gold mine: the payment data of their customers. When a customer enters a shop, restaurant or hotel, perhaps after having already purchased services from that business online or in other locations, he will pay on the spot with a credit card, he will provide his email address to receive the invoice. electronic and will scan your loyalty card. In making these gestures, that customer is a sort of Thumb who, instead of bread crumbs, disseminates segments of data throughout his customer journey. Segments that will be fundamental for reading and understanding his behavior.
Adyen knows it well, the only unified online and in-store payment solution that is helping to transform multi-channel experiences into reality for many leading international retailers such as L'Oreal, Benetton, Brunello Cucinelli, Boggi Milano and Mango. By managing payments from different channels in a single solution, in fact, Adyen is able to provide merchants with access to enriched transaction data that represent a very interesting resource for improving business performance.
What companies can understand about customers through payment data
It is not easy to understand what consumers really want. Sometimes field research or focus groups are used, but they are solutions that require time and resources, and are likely to become outdated soon. On the contrary, the payment data are able to take a picture of the customer full of details and in real time. Like?
Taking the example cited at the beginning, after the customer has left the shop (or restaurant, or hotel), the retailer is able to obtain a series of information from the data relating to his payment which will prove to be valuable. For example:
Which customers buy online and return to make a second purchase in the store?
How many customers of the physical store have also purchased online?
How much do they spend on each channel?
How many regular customers go to the store?
If the payment data from all devices, channels and marketplaces converge in a single platform (as happens precisely with the unified Adyen platform), the merchant will be able to obtain a general and comprehensive overview of its customers. He will be able to understand their desires and preferences, and then choose a specific target and work to deepen the relationships with that group of users.
Payment data: how to use them to satisfy customer wishes in real time
An effective way to exploit in real time the vision that the retailer has on the customer's payment data is the RFM methodology, that is Recency, Frequency, Monetary, where Recency is the metric that indicates when it was the last time the user has purchased on a site, Frequency reveals how often it buys and Monetary reports its average expenditure in a given reference period. By following this methodology, you can analyze the customer base to obtain the most frequent visitor segment. Within this segment, it is possible to examine the amount of transactions online or in store, or begin to catalog the behaviors that have generated loyalty. The next step in identifying the best customers is to develop a strategy that is tailor-made for this group.
Payment data: how to use them to optimize store performance
There are many ways of measuring a store's performance. They often rely on data related to its size or sales. With payment data you get a more precise view of why you are using "richer" data. For example, one can understand how many new customers are attracting a store or how many are making purchases on a recurring basis or, again, how many returns or refunds one can reasonably expect. Furthermore, data payments can also serve to identify the perfect distance between one store and another and to understand where to expand one's presence. For example, from the retailer's e-commerce delivery addresses it can be deduced where the customer base is located. Finally, thanks to these extremely precious data, it is possible to establish with greater precision and effectiveness which prices to apply in a given store, which payment methods to offer and which sales channels to offer.
Payment data: how to use them to get the customer back
Retailers know that in order to retain customers, relevant messages must emerge in the right place and at the right time. It is in this precise context that adopting a unified platform is able to make a difference. Thanks to Unified Commerce, in fact, it is possible to identify customers who have not returned to shop for a while and offer them the right loyalty bonuses and personalized offers. Unified payments also contribute, as already mentioned, to simplifying the customer's cross-channel experiences, by "storing" them in one place.
Ultimately, data payments are able to provide companies with a detailed and in-depth view of all customer behavior and, especially through platforms such as Adyen, they can offer a variety of possibilities that, ultimately, help to grow the business in important way.
Network Digital360 - 28/11/19