The Benefits of Data Mining for Your Business

Big Benefits: Data Mining For Your Business

Online sales are big business — as noted by Internet Retailer, e-retail sales in the U.S. are now worth more than $300 billion per year, with year-to-year growth often topping 15 percent. What does this mean for your business? It means that there’s more profit available and more companies looking to make their mark. Getting ahead means knowing more than the competition and having the tools in place to act on the results. Your best bet? Embracing technology; it’s time tap the benefits of data mining.

Scraping, Collecting and Empowering  

Retail sales run on data — pricing, item descriptions, profit, shipping details and currency conversions, to name a few. Companies often face dual problems when it comes to handling this data: Discovering the data contained on their own websites and portals, and uncovering key information about notable competitors.   The role of data mining tools is to collect information displayed on Web pages and then deliver relational analysis: How are specific variables connected? More importantly, how can they be leveraged to create a better understanding of the market. It starts with what’s known as “website scraping” — e-commerce, competitors and your Web pages are “scraped” for valuable information, which in turn creates a holistic view of the market. Data mining tools, meanwhile, go beneath the surface of existing data sets to uncover the relationships governing specific market trends or sales outcomes, thus giving your business a better understanding of consumer searches and purchases: What are they looking for, what do they find, and what keeps them on a website once they’ve arrived?

Questions and Answers  

To empower this type of discovery and actionable insight, you need the help of a reputable and experienced data mining company — look for robust technology coupled with deep market expertise, which together gives you the solution flexibility you want to be combined with the expert support you need.   As noted by Forbes, however, deriving insight from any data-based endeavor demands the right questions. In effect, it’s about knowing the problem you want to solve: With so much data available it’s easy to get overwhelmed if you don’t articulate what you’re looking for before you start data mining. Ideally, the focus of any data mining solution should be key business objectives: What specific problem are you trying to solve and what metrics indicate success? For example, you might be trying to increase the amount of time prospective buyers spend on your website. To accomplish this aim, you need information about current viewing times, how long consumers stay on competitor sites and what they’re looking at during this time. Mining this data empowers you to make informed decisions and drive ROI.   Data drives the market; data-driven insights give your company the edge. The right data mining tools let you make sense of an increasingly complex retail environment and identify metrics which predict long-term success.

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