Why Real-Time Big Data Matters For Cyber Monday

For decades, retailers scrambled to come up with the perfect Black Friday strategies that would leave their stores with big crowds, but now a large portion of that conversation has turned to doing the same thing online.

According to a recent study conducted by data integration software firm Talend, easily preventable digital obstacles during the online path to purchase prevent nearly a third of shoppers from completing their purchases. However, Ashley Stirrup, chief marketing officer at Talend, emphasized how streamlining data processes can smooth the road for shoppers otherwise prone to cart abandonment.

“Every second matters when it comes to closing an online sale,” Stirrup said in a statement. “Until now, the ability to mine the deluge of customer behavioral data for answers that could be immediately acted upon was available only to the world’s most sophisticated companies – massive organizations with huge IT budgets and teams. Now, these technologies are far more accessible and are allowing more businesses to shape the customer experience for the better in real time.”

Despite the availability of these technologies, Talend’s survey proves that implementation is still lacking. A total of 85 percent of shoppers have abandoned shopping carts at some point, and the travails of online ordering has sapped consumer confidence even further; despite 40 percent of respondents claiming that they always intend to complete their purchases no matter what, hard data shows that number is more likely closer to just 10 percent.

Talend contends that integrating big data strategies able to be leveraged in real time is a possible and promising solution to the challenges many online shoppers face: high shipping costs due to non-optimized logistics, slow loading times or convoluted registration pages, to name a few. Sixty percent of consumers plan on increasing their online holiday purchases from last year, and a whopping 35 percent plan on conducting 75 percent of their holiday shopping online in 2015. Sending these customers through a checkout process from 10 years ago could lead to more than a few silent nights.

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