If you haven?t been paying attention over the last several years, big data is the reigning web 2.0 business model. In an age of global competition and nearly limitless offerings, your customers demand personalization. If they don?t feel like you are speaking to them directly, and considering their unique needs, they?re likely to take their business elsewhere.

I recently came across a very valuable infographic on Dataconomy on the role of big data in e-commerce. The research indicates that the e-commerce market is worth $1.9 trillion. Big data is making it more scalable in many ways.

Leverage Big Data to its Fullest Potential

It is surprising how few marketers make the most of their data. According to Forbes author Andrew Arnold, most marketers only use 0.5% of their data. This means that many are letting it go to waste. If you have a more versatile data strategy, you can get a lot more value from it.

This is where big data comes in. Every time your customers come to your site, and engage with you, you will have an opportunity to leverage the power of big data. If you are wondering how to use big data for your e-commerce site, below are some tips to help guide you.

Develop Customer Profiles

One of the most important uses of big data is in the development of unique customer profiles. Using things like cookies and other data collection plugins, you can determine how, when, and why individual customers shop, making your marketing and advertising highly personalized.

Here is a list of some of the best big data plugins available on WordPress. Most of them are free, and they can add a huge boost to sales and revenue. The foundation of the online business model is the effort to find out as much useful information about an individual customer as possible, and then use that data to personalize marketing.

Use Big Data to Improve Your Customer Service

Big data can also be leveraged to help your customers when they need it. Your customer service is going to be one of the primary ways in which you differentiate yourself from the competition. If people don?t like your customer service, not only will they likely leave, but they will spread the world, potentially further hurting your business.

You can use big data to do things like monitor delivery times, and get a better idea of customer satisfaction. Having good customer service is necessary where there are so many competitors people could be taking their business to.

Streamline Your Supply Management and Logistics

If you are an online retailer selling your products (i.e. not affiliate marketing), knowing how and how much to stock can be tricky. This is especially the case if you are a first-time e-seller.

Thankfully there are applications out there that let you harness the power of big data, and allow you to predict inventory needs and trends with a surprising degree of accuracy.

Things like social listening pick up on which items people are most excited about, notifying you of what you need to order. You can also use big data to coordinate and automate communication between your suppliers so that there are never shortages anywhere in your supply chain.

Big Data Can Help Increase Your Conversion Rate

Another one of big data?s most important functions on any e-commerce site is to help turn your visitors into buyers. As your site starts building traffic, you will get a large number of people who are browsing, but not necessarily ready to buy.

Sometimes people are simply not interested, and other times people leave your site without purchasing because they didn?t like something about the process. If you don?t know what that is, you will never turn these people into customers. Here are great ways to convert those visitors into buyers.

Building a high quality e-commerce site takes a lot of time, effort, and often some up-front investment. Don?t let all that work go to waste by not using all of the tools available to you online. Harness the power of big data to deliver a more personalized visitor experience, better understand your customers? unique wants and needs, and to make sure your logistics and supply chain is streamlined.

Use Big Data to Get the Most from Your Ecommerce Strategy

Big data is playing an increasingly important role in ecommerce. A well-executed data strategy can open many doors, but you need to use it wisely. Collect the right data and have the right strategy in place.