In a data-driven economy, a retail business needs analytics to make more informed decisions. Improve the customer experience using metrics like store performance, consumer habits, sales trends, foot traffic, and location data.
From marketing and sales to planning and pricing, retail analytics is a critical enterprise asset and an essential competency for today’s modern retailers.
The expanding retail analytics market is expected to grow at a rate of 18% up to the year 2025. It will then be valued at approximately $9.5 billion. This means, more companies are considering retail analytics as part of their competitive advantage.
What is Retail Analytics?
Retail technology sits at the heart of a successful retail business. It provides a detailed scope through customer insight and a targeted need for improvement.
Retail analytics refers to analytical data that helps a retailer manage operations like:
- Supply chain movement
- Inventory levels
- Sales and marketing strategies
- Procurement optimization
- Consumer demand
If you’re looking to equip your business with the latest retail technology, consider these 10 popular retail analytics companies in the UK to get started:
Top Retail Analytics Companies
#1) CARTO
Founded: 2012
Location: London
Overview
CARTO is one of the world’s leading location intelligence platforms. They enable retail organizations to use spatial data and analysis for more efficient behavioral marketing, strategic store placement, and geomarketing.
The brand gives customers a superior omnichannel experience while taking the pain away from selecting, collecting, and consuming spatial data.
Key Features
- Optimize layouts and maximize efficiency with data from WiFi, beacons, GPS, and maps
- Spatial techniques and data to define efficient territories and predict outcomes
- Use human mobility data to hyper-target campaigns at a deep granularity
- A wide range of curated datasets on standardized spatial aggregations
- Predict revenues, identify twin areas, and use data streams to monitor performance
#2) Geolytix
Founded: 2011
Location: London
Overview
Geolytix offers a granular-level understanding of retail activity, anywhere in the world. Since the day the brand came into being, they’ve been helping customers determine where to go, how many stores, who to acquire, where to open, and so forth.
The Geolytix brand hires location-planning experts to build tools and collect data that helps retailers better understand and optimize location when creating both physical and digital distribution networks.
Key Features
- Features to optimize home delivery and click & collect operations
- Network strategy to understand store numbers, new formats, online growth
- Location planning to avoid sale cannibalization with online/offline customer profiles
- Omnichannel retailing with loyalty cards, online banking, and mobility data insights
- Spatial modelling with simple scorecard, customized gravity model, and machine learning techniques
#3) Gamma
Founded: 1993
Location: Manchester
Overview
Gamma is a retail tech end-to-end solution that assists with site selection and identifies opportunities to drive traffic to existing stores. Storecast is the product offering retailers an enterprise solution that ensures efficiency throughout the supply chain.
Storecast Gamma helps clients reduce risk through location intelligence with detailed mapping, predictive models, and local market data. The platform supports multi-branch retailers in optimizing locations and the formats of their retail estate.
Key Features
- Design and right-size optimum store estate and find gaps in your network
- Assess impacts of competitor stores with template reports and powerful models
- Monitor store/competitor network, omnichannel trading patterns vs target performance
- Support your stores and target your best prospects locally
- Generate location-specific social media and direct marketing campaigns
#4) Local Data Company
Founded: 2003
Location: London
Overview
One of the UK’s most accurate retail location data companies, the Local Data Company (LDC) uses data and insights to support retail stakeholders through the evolution of the physical retail market.
LDC provides the most accurate, real-time view of structural change taking place across the entire UK market. They provide a powerful toolkit that supports occupiers, landlords, investors, councils, private equity firms, and other retail-oriented businesses.
Key Features
- Location intelligence with price and product analysis
- Footfall and market tracking with observational research
- Town benchmarking, regeneration, and performance tracking
- Acquisition strategy with portfolio performance updates
- Funding applications and measurement with investment allocation
#5) Mercaux
Founded: 2013
Location: London
Overview
Mercaux is a built-for-purpose modular in-store digital platform that was designed to transform the way retailers do business. The software transforms the customer shopping experience. It helps to train staff and creates a level of real-time accessibility that leads to higher sales.
The Mercaux platform is quick and easy to use, with tools that enable retailers to bring the highest standards to customers.
Key Features
- Speak to a store associate via video chat through ecommerce
- Touch screen kiosks access real-time availability of products and self-checkout
- Easy to launch Web App by QR Code or short URL
- Transform retail stores with our built-for-purpose modular in-store digital platform
- Scan barcodes for product information and availability in-store and online
#6) Tamoco
Founded: 2012
Location: London
Overview
Tamoco provides retailers, brands, and organizations with secure geospatial data to make better sense of how customers behave in the offline world. The data-privacy-aware brand understands device location with unprecedented accuracy, putting the where, when, and why into mobility.
The Tamoco platform allows a business to generate more revenue, understand performance, and measure impact for an omnichannel, retail strategy.
Key Features
- Attribution tools to identify the effect of retail marketing campaigns
- Real-word data to empower decisions, from site planning to competitor analysis
- Leading-edge ML algorithm to enhance location accuracy without compromising privacy
- Measure foot traffic with advanced POI methodology to reflect reality of retail footfall
- Holistic view of visitors, catching anonymous customers and what motivates them
#7) Fujitsu
Founded: 1935
Location: London
Overview
A household name in electronics for almost a century, Fujitsu is dipping it’s toe in the waters of retail location data. Solutions are available that can turn a store into a frictionless, responsive, and highly-intelligent, targeted space that consistently delivers revenue growth.
Fujitsu’s retail innovations are helping customers solve the most pressing industry challenges today, from securing a competitive advantage to data-driven decision making and customized retail-tech tools.
Key Features
- Shopping can start on a mobile device and end in-store for 360-degree experience
- Cut queues with a mobile device to scan, pay, and go
- Operational excellence to empower staff deliver a higher value service
- Human-centric retail to identify customers and offer a personalized service
- Multiple data sources – PoS, RFID, Wi-Fi, cameras provide real-time actionable insights
#8) Singular Intelligence
Founded: 2014
Location: London
Overview
The Singular Intelligence platform is designed for direct use by key business decision makers, in any device, for integration with operational processes and automated tasks. All offers are modular and scalable which enables brands to run automated, real-time analysis of retail events.
Singular Intelligence offers a complete, end-to-end software solution for retailers with recommendations for profitable promotions and supply planning. They help a business reach real insights from geospatial data.
Key Features
- Helps to optimize production, product availability, replenishment along whole chain
- Understand and use influence of all market factors in real-time with efficient automation
- AI-powered intelligent assistant to suppress limits and constraints of standard systems
- Provides best actionable recommendations to the teams you support
- Avoid waste, reduce opportunity costs, limit unnecessary promotions and fire sales
#9) IRi
Founded: 1979
Location: London
Overview
In the late 70’s, IRi developed a computerized system to accurately track consumer purchase and media behavior. It helps pave the road of personalizing the customer experience to drive revenue and increase sales.
The platform helps a business tap into unique geospatial insights, promote collaboration, and improve joint business planning between retailers and manufacturers. The system leverages best-in-class analytics to better understand key shopper trends, target households, and track the impact of store performance.
Key Features
- Access robust modelling to optimize prices and plan effective promotions in real-time
- Gain a deeper understanding of historical performance and current market dynamics
- Boost store and category sales at scale with the right products on the right shelf
- Improve marketing programs with better audience targeting and campaign measurement
- Transform retailer advertising by better understanding media impact and high-vale shoppers
#10) Native
Founded: 2017
Location: London
Overview
The Native platform changes the way data is collected for retailers by taking a more hands-on approach. The system helps a business understand exactly where the customer is at, every step of the buyer’s journey. Wherever there are brick-and-mortar locations, Native staff is ready to deliver real-time results.
Native is changing the way market research is tasked, collected, and delivered on demand. Customize questions to collect the exact data your business needs to drive sales and increase revenue.
Key Features
- Map the key factors that improve or disrupt the customer experience
- Flexibility of email surveys with the power of real world, local collection
- Track every action when data is collected and validates every entry before you receive it
- Get local and customized market research delivered in a matter of hours, not months
- On-demand mystery shopping to “Buy and Try” for out of store consumer visibility
Honorable Mentions
- Hoxton Analytics
- Sensing Feeling
- Proximity Insight
- Red Ant
- Edited
- Third Eye
- Bold Mind
- Polymatica
- Market Hub
The Future of Retail Analytics
In a rapidly changing, omnichannel retail landscape, retail analytics is necessary to gain a competitive edge.
More companies are adopting cloud-based solutions, and location-based hardware like RFID, in-store WiFi, and IoT devices. This gives retailers more access to information than ever before.
When it comes to the future of retail analytics, two trends to keep an eye out for include:
Predictive Analytics
This uses data mining, predictive modeling, and machine learning to predict what’s next. It removes the guesswork so retailers can make more confident, data-based decisions.
Prescriptive Analytics
Once a solution predicts the next step, it can also prescribe to retailers the best course of action. For example, software that recommends items to discount based on real-time sales and inventory data.
Retailers should always seek a custom solution that best suits their needs. The best retail analytics companies in the UK will offer tailored features that streamline your workflow, offer a competitive advantage, and identify opportunities every step of the way.
