LBS Alumni Spotlight: The Retail Industry & Holiday Trends
Unlike the consulting, finance and technology sectors, retail has always been regarded as a safe industry for employment. That’s because no matter how bad the economy gets, the retail industry will never cease to exist as long as people still make purchases. And that’s especially true for the holidays.
Each year during the holidays, on average, UK households spend £794.39 and US households spend $752.00. It’s not a small chunk of change. There’s no doubt that it’s a busy time of year, and many retail companies go all out to bring in new customers and grab the largest percentage of sales. But does that mean it’s a good industry to work in? Continue reading…
DePaul Combines Theoretical And Practical Knowledge With Big Data
With the rise of big data, marketers are finding new ways to analyze and predict consumer behavior in order to provide products and services to meet customer needs. The term big data refers to the collection of data that is large and complex and gathered through multiple methods. For marketing, that could be data from point-of-sale scanners at a store, loyalty cards or online shopping habits.
“Marketing has become more data driven over the last 30 years,” Sue Fogel, chair of DePaul University’s Department of Marketing said. “Based on the data about what people have bought, what we can do now is make recommendations for other products that they might like. You can get a very detailed profile of customers and use that to predict what it is they’re likely to buy.” Continue reading…
