Online tool gives retailer real-time insights into customer trends
A new Canadian online platform is helping small to medium-sized retailers drive growth and get a real-time gauge of the shopping trends of customers. One such retailer is Denninger’s Foods of the World, based in Hamilton, Ontario. The family-run specialty grocer, which operates five stores, is harnessing real-time data through RBC Insight Edge™ to expand its business and better target its customer base.
“In order to grow our company’s profitability, we needed to really understand who our customers were and how we compared to the competition,” says Denninger’s Chief Executive Officer Mary Aduckiewicz. “When we first saw a demo of the platform, we all got excited by the data available to us.”
A first-of-its-kind Canadian platform, Insight Edge gives retailers access through a subscription to the benefits of big data analysis using proprietary algorithms and real-time intelligence based on large sets of anonymized real-time transaction data. Retailers can hone in on consumer spending in specific areas and get insights into commercial activities in neighbourhoods across the country. The aggregated demographic data covers everything from income, population density and age, to gender and spending habits in a specific category.
“With such dramatic changes in consumer spending patterns happening throughout the pandemic, RBC Insight Edge is a powerful tool that helps retailers gain a better sense of customer and market trends to guide their business investments and strategies,” says Christina Vandoremalen, Vice President, Business Deposits and Treasury Solutions, RBC. “The platform’s insights evolve in real-time, allowing businesses to quickly pivot, scale and identify opportunities for growth as they emerge. These insights can also complement other market research and data sources to further validate their business decisions.”
Aduckiewicz says the tool has been critical in helping pinpoint where future expansion locations would best fit. “We can use Insight Edge to understand the demographics of a potential market and get a feel for how successful we’ll be,” she says. “We also have visibility into our existing customer profile to see where we’re underrepresented so we can figure out how to close those gaps.”
In addition to Denninger’s, other retailers like Vancouver-based Purdys Chocolatier have also benefited from using Insight Edge analytics to make strategic business decisions. Ron Young, director of product and insights at Purdys, says the platform has been critical to not only tailoring production selection, but in investigating new store locations. "Within minutes we get a really good visual idea of the success we may have in that location, giving us confidence in the decisions we are making based on accurate, qualitative and quantitative data," he says.