It’s no secret that the retail, fashion, footwear, and beauty industry rely on data to stay afloat in such a competitive era. From trends to pricing, determining how to position your brand in the universal sized marketplace can be an overwhelming project. Long gone are the days of just simply “existing” and selling based on reputation or quality. If you’re a decision maker in the space, your job is ever evolving and more challenging than ever.
You need to know what products to promote, when, how and where, as well as the right price point, competitor activity, and forecast for sales success. How the hell can you do all of this for each and every product your company sells on a daily basis? You’re probably close to overdosing on Ibuprofen if you are still manually analyzing the data to create this type of report.
Get this: there is a solution that cuts down the endless hours of analyzing that data and delivers a marketing strategy that informs your best next move. It was developed specifically for you, to make your life easier, to make your job fun again.
Yes, I said the one word that industry professionals don’t associate with their careers much these days – FUN. You should be having fun with fashion, isn’t that why you rolled up your silk sleeves, put on those thigh high boots and jumped over hurdles to forge your own path to retail success? I’m going to break it down for you so you can easily see how we handle the facts, and you have the fun.
Generating revenue means you need to have a strong and fast pulse on what the current bestsellers are, which categories and styles are trending, optimal price for said items, and when to promote your products based on popularity. The Good Morning America TV show featured a professional stylist who told the US that a bomber jacket you can buy for $44 at Walmart is hot, hot, hot right now. Within minutes, the retail giant sold out of the fall fashion staple. Do we know what other retail shops consumers instantly click through to if they want to buy this product knowing they now have to resort to somewhere else? Amazon, for sure. Google shopping will kick out every option from the $15 knock offs from overseas to the $3,000 designer jacket. Where do you fit in and how do you capitalize on an opportunity like this?
We know. It’s what we do for you. The tools we have that mine the data when trends like this arise are crucial to retailers’ bottom line.
Social media is a game changer when it comes to fashion trends. Celebrities take major risks with what they wear, and those choices persuade the industry as a whole on levels the average consumer can’t even understand. Influencers post daily outfits and share links to where viewers can buy the products they are promoting, this is marketing that cannot be ignored. What’s popping one week could easily be replaced by something hopping the next. Brands absolutely must be strategic and not only identify these opportunities but move quickly to promote their products and stay at the top of social feeds, search engines, and consumers awareness.
We take care of the difficult task of measuring and tracking consumer choices, timing, shopping habits, methods of purchases, how buyers interact with trends, and what kind of staying power these trends have. This helps you to understand what products to invest your time and money into for the most profitable return as well as the highest probability of word-of-mouth/viral promotions. Because let’s face it, word of mouth wins. When we see a friend or colleague wearing something we love, whether it’s a top, set of high heels, cologne, or mascara, we want to know where we can get it – now. I even get super bummed out if I’m told that the item was purchased years ago, or the friend doesn’t know where it came from.
Our software digs deep into search engine keywords at any given minute of any given hour. This is the type of information you need in order to get more traffic, more shares, and more sales. Without this, you suffer from the likelihood of working overtime to stay in the know on keyword trends… manually. That’s like shoveling five feet of snow off a football field every freaking hour of every day, when there are snow removal machines that do the job way more efficiently and effectively in a fraction of the time. That’s us.
Furthermore, you can lose a potential customer in an instant if your products aren’t priced right. But by the time you’ve done your research to determine the right price point for any given item, you’re behind the eight ball and losing business to competitors.
All the above factors can make or break your retail business, even if you are a global brand with thousands of employees and millions of dollars in annual revenue. You have to maintain your distinction and continuously manufacture products your loyal customers expect, and don’t expect. That’s brand loyalty, and it takes commitment to achieve that from your audience. The best way to hook a new customer that can turn into a lifelong customer is to be immersed in the industry data and staying ahead of the game.
Centric Software is an innovation-driven technology suite that delivers data driven marketing solutions on how consumers shop. We enable retail planners, merchandisers, and buyers to build successful assortments, optimize allocation and build efficient replenishment strategies for maximum sell-through and margins, and minimal markdowns. Drawing real-time information from multiple databases, we offer highly visual, touch-screen experiences for collaboration, and decision-making, fundamentally changing the way assortment, buying and sourcing decisions are made. We empower brands to drive revenue growth with enhanced product mix and pricing through AI-powered competitive assortment benchmarking, product price optimization and product trend insight. Trusted by many of the world’s market-leading brands, retailers and
manufacturer, Centric Software proudly maintains a 99% customer retention and 97% customer reliability.