What is a consumer behavior analysis?

Consumer behavior analysis is a thorough, in-depth assessment of how shoppers interact with and purchase from an ecommerce brand.

It typically leverages both qualitative and quantitative methods, and examines every step of the consumer's journey. 

Consumer behavior analysis reveals insights into the means and motivations behind your shoppers’ behaviors.

The process can vary between brands, but it generally begins with segmentation of shoppers into distinct buyer personas. These personas are then monitored throughout their consumer journey to see how each one interacts with your brand along the way.

This in-depth analysis reveals deep insights about the various factors that impact your consumers’ behavior – the priorities, desires, motives and decisions that drive their shopping journey. In turn, this analysis also helps you discover how your shoppers perceive your brand.

Comprehensive consumer behavior analysis offers an array of benefits for retail ecommerce brands looking to enhance their growth strategy. Here are just a few advantages an analysis of your consumer behavior can deliver. 

Personalize the consumer experience 

At its most basic level, consumer behavior analysis helps you understand what your customers want and, as a result, how to deliver it to them. 

This deeper understanding of the consumer unlocks greater opportunities for personalization.

The desire from consumers for personalization is on the rise – with 68% of shoppers expecting all experiences to be personalized.

And with the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and other innovative technologies, the ability for ecommerce brands to personalize their communications has never been more advanced.

Retail consumer behavior analyses reveal not just the broad preferences of your shoppers, but also the granular, more unique preferences too.

Supplied with these insights, you can create targeted and personalized marketing, products and services that will resonate better with your consumers. Consequently, you can optimize your shoppers’ experiences at scale.

Drive faster innovations 

Consumer behavior analyses provide immense amounts of shopper data, from total monthly visits and granular page views such as heat mapping, to purchase histories and preferred channels.

This quantifiable data can be analyzed further to identify trends, patterns and habits in your consumers’ behavior. These, in turn, can provide insights into potential opportunities for innovation.

New revenue streams, identification of new potential consumer segments, preferred payment methods, opportunities for new product development – these are just a few insights that a consumer behavior analysis can reveal.

These insights, when analyzed in greater detail, can help you identify areas that would benefit from new innovations in your retail infrastructure.

Build greater efficiencies 

Just as consumer behavior analysis can identify areas for innovation in your digital commerce retailer, so too can they reveal blockers to customer conversion and inefficiencies in the buying journey.

Consumer behavior analysis could, for instance, show that most shopper queries come through social media, rather than an onsite chatbot. With this knowledge, a retail brand could reallocate resources to focus on social queries, expediting queries and delivering shorter response times as a result.

Use the data gleaned from your consumer behavior analysis to go beyond identifying areas for innovation, but also to resolve blockers that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Increase consumer retention 

Generally speaking, it is more cost-effective (and easier) to retain existing shoppers than acquire new ones.

But actually achieving customer retention requires a concerted retention strategy that understands and appeals to your shoppers – consumer behavior analysis is key to this.

Consumer behavior analysis returns deep insights into the way your shoppers interact with and behave towards your brand, both online and offline. Assessing this data helps you understand what it is that encourages repeat custom from your audience.

Special offers, marketing messaging, limited-edition products or collaborations – all these and more can all play a part in why your consumers return to your brand.

Analysis of consumer behavior shows the most rewarding factors in driving repeat custom. In turn, this enables you to focus your efforts on these areas, investing in and optimizing them for an improved retail customer experience and greater, continued results.

Comprehensive consumer behavior analysis uncovers immense amounts of first-party data about the way your shoppers interact with your brand.

When analyzed thoroughly, the insights gleaned from this data can deliver transformative benefits across your business. 

DTC offers a huge volume of this first-party data. At THG Ingenuity, we've spent almost 20 years harnessing that data with consumer analysis to grow brands, generating insights that drive strategic decisions across marketing, operations and technology.

Get in touch to unlock the strategic impact of consumer analysis and data.