Selling online is no longer just a trend, it has become a necessity for businesses aiming to reach a broader audience. As every company is extending its digital presence, simply listing your products and waiting for a sale is not going to work! You must find a way to stand out from the competitors. But how?
That’s where Digital Shelf Analytics comes into play!
What is Digital Shelf Analytics?
Digital Shelf Analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing data from various sales channels to gain insights into product performance and channel competition. The Digital Shelf refers to the place where your products are sold online, it could be your own website or any third-party eCommerce platform.
Digital Shelf Analytics focuses on tracking your product performance, customer interactions, and the competition involved. This includes monitoring specific KPIs like search visibility, customer reviews, competitor pricing and so on. By this way, businesses can get a clear understanding of the products which are performing well and the ones which needs attention.
In essence, Digital Shelf Analytics helps businesses optimize their product listings and boost the sales, and stay ahead of competition across the channels.
Who uses Digital Shelf Analytics?
The simple and straightforward answer to this question is – Anyone who is selling online!
Retailers
To track product performance across the sales channels, optimize product listings for better visibility, monitor stock availability, and adjust pricing to boost sales.
Manufacturers
To gain insights on how their products are presented, track performance, understand customer feedback, and stay competitive across the marketplaces.
Brands
To enhance their online presence and drive sales by analyzing competitor strategies and identifying areas of improvement.
Importance of Digital Shelf Analytics
The ultimate reason is—To Stay Competitive
As the world is going digital, new products and competitors are increasing day by day. The global eCommerce market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 9.49% resulting in a market volume of $6478bn by 2029. Hence, it has become a necessity for the businesses to leverage Digital Shelf Analytics to stay ahead in the market.
Here are some key reasons why Digital Shelf Analytics is important:
- Helps businesses make data-driven decisions about the product, pricing, or promotions.
- Provides insights to stay ahead of the competition by understanding the trends and consumer behavior.
- Ensures the brand is consistently showcased across the channels, building trust and credibility.
How does digital shelf analytics work?
The process focuses on gathering the data, analyzing it, and providing actionable insights to optimize your digital shelf.
Here are the key steps involved:
Data Scraping
Automated web crawlers collect large amounts of data from the online platforms. These crawlers scrape the data at regular intervals to keep the dashboard up-to-date. This data includes product descriptions, pricing, availability, and customer reviews.
Data Analysis
The collected data is then analyzed with the help of Machine Learning Algorithms. Gap analysis is performed to identify the gaps and overlaps by comparing your products against competitors.
Actionable Insights
The data is presented in an intuitive dashboard which shows the trend charts, scorecards, and reports. Based on this we could understand the current state of our digital shelf and derive actionable insights to optimize and make it better.
Key Features of Digital Shelf Analytics
DSA provides a comprehensive view of how your products are performing and help increase sales. The Key features include:
Product Rank Tracking
Product Rank Tracking feature helps you track the rankings of your products across the channels and provide insights on search visibility and keyword performance. With this, you can optimize your product listings to enhance your visibility.
Competitor Intelligence
Competitor intelligence helps you monitor prices continuously so that you could adjust your prices to stay ahead. By this way, you can keep track of your competitors’ movements and craft your strategies accordingly.
Dynamic Pricing
With Dynamic Pricing feature, you can automate the pricing adjustments of your products based on market trends and competitor actions. It helps you keep your pricing competitive while reducing the need for constant manual efforts.
Customer Review Analysis
Customer Review Analysis helps you analyze the customer reviews across the channels and understand the common sentiments, through which you could further increase the customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
MAP Monitoring
MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) Tracking helps you maintain brand integrity across all the platforms. You’ll receive alerts when the products fall below the set price range.
What data does digital shelf analytics provide?
Share of search
Listing your product in the marketplace and waiting for a sale? – Well, That’s not how it works!
Yes, just listing your product doesn’t mean that your customer will find it. Remember, you are one among the thousands. To stand out, you should analyze where you rank compared to your competitors and work towards improving the ranking.
To help this, Digital Shelf Analytics helps you analyze the search visibility by providing data like – total number of listings, listings on the first page, type of listing (organic or sponsored), the number of products with item badges and their placement, and Share of Search—the percentage of search traffic directed to your brand.
Content compliance
Content discrepancy—definitely a headache!
Digital Shelf Analytics performs regular content audits and provides content quality score and channel compliance score specifically for each channel. As you know, Each channel has its own set of content guidelines. This helps you ensure your product information such as the description, images, and attributes align with the marketplace standards.
Price competitiveness
The software keeps track of the Sale price of competitors and showcases the highest, lowest, and average price of each particular product in the marketplace. It also provides the price variation of your products compared to the competitors. It also visualizes the price trend of competitors over a period of time.
Stock Availability
If a person wants to buy your product and finds it out of stock— he’ll simply click on another option and complete his purchase. But for you— it is leaving money on the table!
Hence, a Digital Shelf Analytics solution helps you monitor the product availability across all channels where your products are listed. No more missed opportunities!
Ratings and reviews
Of course! The final decision to purchase is based on the past reviews.
The customer reviews across the channels are collected and customer sentiment is analyzed with the help of Machine Learning Algorithms.
Product performance
Analyzing your product performance helps you get better.
You could get a clear view of which products are performing well and which aren’t. So, you could easily spot the areas for improvement and resolve the issues to boost the sales.
Do I need digital shelf analytics?
If you are selling online, you definitely know how challenging it can be! Monitoring and optimizing the performance of your products across multiple sales platforms can be overwhelming. Not sure, whether you need Digital Shelf Analytics or not?
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you need to track the prices of your competitors?
- Is optimizing pricing a constant struggle for you?
- Do you find it hard to stay compliant with marketplace standards?
- Are you experiencing frequent stock-outs?
- Are you looking to optimize your product listings for better search visibility?
If your answer is “Yes” to most of these questions, then it’s time for you to explore the benefits of Digital Shelf Analytics!
Benefits of Digital Shelf Analytics
DSA helps you:
- Monitor competitor pricing and adjust your prices strategically with data-driven insights.
- Get a clear view of your brand’s performance across all the sales channels, and develop new strategies that drive growth.
- Leverage Machine Learning to analyze customer sentiment and refine your marketing strategies.
- Track and optimize your product rankings while ensuring content compliance across all marketplaces.
- Monitor stock availability across the channels, preventing stock-outs and missed sales.
How to choose the right digital shelf analytics solution?
With so many options available in the market, you might be confused about how to find your perfect fit!
Here are the key steps you should consider:
Identify your needs
Figure out what you truly need! Are you looking to track your product rankings, monitor competitor performance, optimize pricing, or content audits? Identifying your specific requirements will help you choose the perfect solution for your business.
Evaluate the features
Remember, Not every solution in the market is the same. Check whether the software has all the essential features you need. Also, ensure the solution provides actionable insights presented in an intuitive dashboard.
Standalone vs. Integrated Solutions
If you are only interested in analyzing how your products perform online, a standalone solution might be what you need. Alternatively, if you want a more holistic approach, you could consider a PIM solution that comes with built-in Digital Shelf Analytics capabilities.
Assess Integration Capabilities
A smooth integration process will save you a lot of time! Ensure the solution can easily integrate with all the platforms you are selling on such as Amazon, eBay, etc. Also, check whether it supports your inventory management or marketing tech stack.
Assess Scalability
Scalability is crucial for long-term success! Look for a solution that could grow with your business needs down the line. There shouldn’t be any performance issues while you’re scaling your product portfolio or expanding your marketplaces.
Utilize Demos and Trials
Take advantage of the demos and free trials offered by the software providers. Experiencing the system priorly will help you better understand how the solution works and how well it fits you, before making a commitment.
PIM + DSA
A PIM system enables you to create, manage, and syndicate your product data to all your sales channels ensuring they are accurate, consistent, and up-to-date. On the other hand, Digital Shelf Analytics solution helps you analyze the performance of your products across those platforms.
Having a PIM with Digital Shelf Analytics integration gives you a holistic approach to your business —All from a single platform. This combination not only helps streamline your data management, but enables you to make better and data-driven decisions.
Final thoughts
Digital Shelf Analytics is more than just a tool — It is the key to succeed in this highly competitive eCommerce world! It provides real-time insights into how your products are performing across different channels and what your competitors are doing. Whether you’re a brand manager, retailer, or manufacturer, Digital Shelf Analytics will help you make smarter decisions and boost your sales.
It is estimated that 22.6% of all the retail purchases will be made online by 2027. So, instead of simply listing your products online and hoping for the best, analyze and manage your product listings more strategically with the help of data. This approach will enhance your online presence, thereby boosting your sales and revenue.
Gear up to make data-driven decisions that drive results — Are you ready to get started? Book your free demo today!
FAQs
Digital Shelf Analysis refers to the process of analyzing the brand’s presence across online marketplaces.
Digital Shelf refers to the virtual space where the products are displayed and made available for customers to purchase. This includes the retailer websites, e-commerce platforms, social media, and so on.
Digital Shelf Optimization is the process of enhancing the brand’s online presence to improve visibility and increase sales.
To win on the digital shelf, brands must optimize their product listings for better visibility and customer engagement while staying competitive in the marketplace.
