FROM OUR JANUARY ISSUE: FASHION FUTURES – RETAIL’S NEW DATA-DRIVEN ECONOMY

The entire MR team proudly presents our January 2025  issue. If you haven’t received a hard copy, please page through our digital version, and we’ll continue to post individual stories here on  MR-mag.com. If you haven’t been getting MR in print, be sure that you are on our mailing list for future issues by completing  this form.

With Christmas behind us, what have we learned? How long has it taken to review holiday season successes and challenges? Are you still in post festive season review, shaking your head in your hands, wondering what has happened? Or, as a digitally led retailer, are you instead celebrating what you learned during the season and what you did to take advantage of successes and course-correct challenges in real time?  

The Evolution of Data: What? Why? Will? What To Do?  

Where Are You on This Journey?  

Most retailers are firmly rooted in the Descriptive and Diagnostic stages of data analysis. But for today’s digitally savvy retailer, data is more than transactional and logistical. Prediction and Prescriptive analytics drive business momentum and growth. In fact, retailers who leverage “Big Data” could increase operating margins by as much as 60%. As organizations continue to improve and ensure that data is consistent, trustworthy, and accurately defined, Big Data will continue to foster better decisions and actions by business users.  

Data Is the New Currency  

Everything we do creates data. According to IBM, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data daily. Since 2013, when mobile search over- took browser search, people create 90% of the world’s data every two years. In other words, it took us 2,013 years to create 10% of the world’s data, and from 2023 to 2025, we will make another 90%. If data is your friend, Big Data is your best friend. So, what is Big Data? Simply put, it’s extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to review patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions.  

This data can be structured, but it can also be unstructured. Examples include: Visual/Image, Location, Behavioral, Contextual, Internet of Things (IoT), Biometric (Fingerprint, Body Measurements, Voice, Skin Color, Undertone, Hairstyle, Face Shape), Weather, Geographical, Political, Economic.  

Big Data is collected and stored in cloud-based Data Lakes in its raw/native format. The Data Lake can also contain the retailer’s legacy data. Data is then extracted (usually via code) to a data warehouse when required for analysis.  

“By applying data science (since 1960), machine learning (since 2000)—preparing computers to spot patterns, learn, and predict from big data—and deep learning methods (since 2012) to data flows to validate, recognize, predict, and generate patterns, we garner new insights and opportunities,” explains Jelle Stienstra, Strategy Director Pttrns.ai, a Netherlands-based technology com- pany that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to accelerate digital personalization for retailers and brands.  

“All of this data can be overwhelming to retailers,” explains Mark Williams, Senior Director & Head of Retail, Hospitality & Travel EMEA at Hitachi Digital Services. “Unless you have a generously funded and advanced IT department, retailers need a partner to help create, implement, and drive a strategy for success.”  

According to Williams, 65% of retailers base decisions on in-store performance, with only 35% considering an omnichannel strategy.  

Digital Is Discovery  

Whether performing a search, opening an app, visiting a website, or watching a video, people turn to their mobile devices to get answers or take action. Mobile devices integrate—not blur—the physical with the digital. People pick up their smartphones because they want to: Know, go, do, or buy. 

For retailers, this is an opportunity to meet customers at their moment of intent, when decisions are being made, or when preferences are being shaped.  

90% of all sales are influenced by a digital touchpoint. Brand websites play an important role for 69% of purchasers. In fact, over 80% of customers have been online at least two days before entering a shop, and 40% won’t go into a store unless they can go online first. 50% of all digital transactions occur on mobile devices.  

“Now we can design recommender systems where, instead of going with just the brand attributes, now AI can pick up on what content the user is browsing in,” explains Jessica Graves, the founder of Sefleuria, a New York-based interaction design consultancy. “This user can be completely anonymous, and you don’t need to have all their data. You just need to know what they’re doing,” she says.  

Data Driven Customer Acquisition = Engagement and Loyalty  

According to consumer psychologist Kate Nightingale, founder of London-based Humanising Brands, a behavioral strategy, design, and innovation agency, consumers have four basic needs—to feel safe, to belong, to be seen, and to be heard.  

“Consumers are human, not digital,” she explains. “Digital data is a treasure trove of information about your customers’ psychology, motivations, and attitudes. The wealth of learning can be considerably increased with behavioral sciences allowing you to personalize beyond relevancy and into inspiring the future lives of your customers. The benefits include higher loyalty, better relationships, and increased brand equity.”  

Digital enables meaningful relationships. Connected devices create opportunities. Successful retailers in the Digital Age think beyond E-commerce and marketing. They go behind creating more detailed views of consumers and their transactions. Instead, they manage relationships at scale as a key new approach to engagement and loyalty by using all available information about an individual to offer a tailored product, solution, or service.  

“Successful retailers are moving from an instrumental perspective to a holistic view of the consumer,” explains Stienstra. “It will likely not take long until consumers allow retailers to have a look at their social media in turn for better offers.”  

According to Bain & Company, “Fundamentally, customers don’t want choice. They just want exactly what they want.”  

The Future of Media Optimization  

Imagine your own Trend Bot aimed at menswear that measures everything granularly: Silhouettes, Colors, Fabrics, E-Commerce, Grooming and Wellness Trends, Fashion Trends, Runway Shows, Market Share, Consumer Reviews, Social Media, Sales, Returns CRM Data. It could also keep track of what’s being said globally and regionally about your store in reviews, social media, and the press. Your marketing team can then create content that is super creative, hyper-personalized, authentic, entertaining, and relevant to drive traffic to your store.  

The Future of Business Optimization for Demand & Sales Forecasting

Imagine your own AI that measures Sales, Weather, GDP Index (World Economy), and Amazon Trends against Campaign and Pricing Impact. How much could 1-2 points improve your revenue?  

Nothing Happens Without People  

Digital leaders enable transparency, visibility, and data management across the enterprise, ensuring the organization owns and controls its data. Creating a culture of participation and real-time collaboration is vital to drive integration across marketing, sales, and customer experience; supply chains and operations; products and services; and new business models.“If you’ve not started collecting data beyond what your legacy systems provide, now is the time to begin,” Williams advises. Sienstra agrees. “Successful analytics require lots of relevant data and a human perspective.”