AsianScientist (Jun 27, 2014) – A Sri Lankan elephant tracking model has inspired IT researchers at QUT to take a new approach to analyzing the behavior of “digitally connected” Australian shoppers.
Associate Professor Darshana Sedera said companies had been able to track their customers through “digital footprints” for some time, thanks to tracks left by shoppers as they used their retail mobile apps, store cards, GPS and EFPOS. His new research takes that tracking further by combining it with contextual factors – a technique used by a University of Sri Lanka study developing a path prediction for elephants.
Sedera, who served as an external advisor on the Sri Lankan project, said the elephant tracking model analysed how elephants behaved within contextual factors like changes in season, harvesting time, density, family orientation and environment.
“This research looked at the implications of knowing elephant tracks and predicting their path and how this affected other stakeholders, such as farmers, agricultural and wild-life departments, and thought that a similar scenario could be developed for consumers,” he said.
“Our study specifically looked at how companies are trying to create and then increase digital connectivity with the company using mobile apps, changes to consumer behavior and firm capabilities.”
He said QUT researchers had already surveyed about 500 Australian supermarket shoppers and found that most people assumed that supermarkets were tracking their shopping behaviors.
“It’s actually created a double-edged sword,” he said. “Customers know that retailers collect a lot of information about them and their shopping patterns, so they are demanding more tailored marketing and more offers that are specific to their shopping behavior. Things like: You can see I buy nappies, give me specials on nappies.”
Sedera’s team also found there is a saturation point on this heightened digital connectedness, after which increased marketing will not have any impact.
He added that being able to accurately predict even a small percentage of customer behavior could add to big savings for retailers through more accurate stock purchasing and maintenance.
“Sensing information may have become an easier thing now, but the most important thing is that the company must have the capability to deliver increasing customer expectations. We found 70 percent of our sample said there were not very satisfied with how companies recognized or responded to their unique needs.”
“Our second phase of the study is on this inadequacy. We want to see firm capacity to respond to digital innovations and we welcome any partnerships and collaborations,” he said.
The article can be found at: Atapattu and Sedera. (2014) Agility in consumer retail: sense-response alignment through the eyes of customers.
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Source: Queensland University of Technology.
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