Gagan Mehra

Digital commerce doesn’t stand still. Just look around. The buy online, drive-up delivery model scarcely existed until retail shutdowns during the pandemic— and now signs of it are (literally) in every retailer parking lot. Digital wallets are rapidly supplanting credit cards as the payment method of choice. And manufacturers of everything from industrial machinery to candy bars are venturing beyond tried-and-true distribution channels into new terrain with direct-to-consumer sales.

“Clienteling” enables shoppers and personnel in physical stores to interact with online channels, such as web, mobile, and social. Saks Fifth Avenue, for example, has used clienteling for over five years. With clienteling, in-store associates access an application that provides info about a shopper, such as order history and preferences. The result is merchants can better serve customers and drive higher average value orders. Customers save time, and store associates can close sales faster.

In “Understanding Big Data for Ecommerce,” we provided a primer on the growth of data and its implications for ecommerce merchants. This article will add to that post by explaining Big Data in more detail and presenting its most common uses for ecommerce sites. There are many definitions of Big Data.