4 Types of Datasets to Create a Better Shopify Store

Exploring four creative ways to improve your Shopify store.

Illustration by Pablo Stanley
Words by Samantha Lloyd

E-commerce has experienced a fast surge in sales, due to social distancing and non-essential business closures amidst COVID-19. Approximately 3 in 10 Canadians are buying items online that they normally would have purchased in-store and purchases of staple goods have increased in general. If you run a Shopify store, you may be noticing a similar pattern and experiencing a spike in traffic and customers. This can mean you’ve had difficulties keeping up with demand or shelving items you expected to sell. 

Using data science, you can often predict consumer behaviour and make decisions based on those predictions. Let’s explore how you can create your own datasets from information you have likely already collected and how you can use no code tools to help you make the best decisions for your business.

Using your data to predict behaviour

There are 4 different types of datasets you could create from your Shopify store and user data. This data can be used to make predictions for everything from sales forecasting, inventory management, fraud detection, and marketing to your existing customer base. 

Using data science to help you analyze and predict aspects of your business can keep you focused on what you do best: creating amazing products and services that your customers need! Using a no code platform for data science tasks empowers you to get predictions and analytics that will help your business succeed.

Create a dataset for sales forecasting

Sales forecasting is a big part of running a business - it’s important to know what you’ll earn so that you can budget your spend in the business and manage your growth effectively. Gather your sales data for the last few years to create a dataset that shows trends month-over-month as well as year-over-year. Predict future growth, analyze your best and worst time periods, and find patterns in your sales so you can prepare.

Create a dataset for inventory management

When sales are drastically impacted, so are inventory levels. For better or for worse, you may be selling out of some items quicker than expected or shelving other items longer than predicted nowadays. But even normal years have spikes and drops, such as during the holidays or when you offer discounts. If you have accumulated years of data on your inventory and sales, this data can help you understand your retail inventory levels. Make a dataset out of your inventory over each month and year-over-year so you can predict what to stock, what your customers purchase, and when. This information can also help you plan the best time to offer discounts or offers on products customers typically buy together.

Create a dataset for fraud detection

Unfortunately, fraud is on the rise due to the increase of online activity with a 13% increase in fraudulent attempted transactional value in March. There are AI tools that can help you with anomaly detection so you can understand if and how your users or your shop are the targets of fraudulent behaviour. Create a dataset from your fraud reports and your successful orders. Use this data to predict the type of behaviour that is most likely to be fraudulent so you can protect your customers and your business.

Create a dataset for upselling and cross-selling

To understand your business best, you need to know the products your customers buy, how they shop, and what items are often grouped together. Using this information, you can better cross-sell or upsell your current customer base. Using your existing purchase data, you can analyze commonly bought-together items, and create marketing campaigns for your customer base surrounding that information. If you know some customers buy a mug set that other customers always pair with a dish set, you can cross-sell your existing customers and upsell future customers who are browsing other items. This data allows you to market effectively.No matter what your Shopify store offers, you can create datasets from your existing data so that you can derive predictions and important information and get analytics. This type of information will allow you to make the best decisions for your business. With your data, you’re prepared for increased sales of products, you can market effectively, you can decrease your fraudulent activity, and you can easily handle inventory management. No code data science tools enable you to better understand your data, your customers, and your business.

Note: See Shopify’s COVID-19 support for store owners if you are looking for support, tips, or more information about managing your eCommerce shop during COVID-19.

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