Retail and commerce data is the collection of information about retail and commerce. This may be data about a single company, a market or industry, or a region.
This data comes from internal company data—financial reports, surveys, and feedback requests, mostly. Other sources include competitor data or market data analyzing social media trends, price comparisons, and product review data.
Governments and intergovernmental bodies also track reported revenue and international trade data by company, industry, and region.
Finally, there are physical and online sources of retail and commerce data. Points of interest, foot traffic, and weather data can predict and inform sales in brick-and-mortar stores. Meanwhile, customer sentiment, price comparison, keyword trends, and product review data tell companies which products customers enjoy or look for.
This data tends to be divided into physical vs e-commerce data. It is further divided into industries or regions or both.
You should expect to see revenue in one column and at least one time period in another. The revenue may be provided as a raw number followed by a percentage of the company’s or industry’s total. The dataset may also include a comparison of percent change from the last quarter or from the same time last year.
Managers, executives, and others use retail and commerce data to improve their business’s performance, products, service, marketing approach, or all of the above. They also use the data to conduct competitor and market analysis, or to weigh the wisdom of entering a new or foreign market.
Investors and lenders use the data to decide whether they will invest in a company.
Finally, governments and international agencies use the data to track the health of industries or larger economies. These institutions then use the data to argue for or against policy changes.
As in all data categories, you should be concerned about the accuracy, relevancy, consistency, and recency of the data collected. Certain sources, of course, are more reliable. Retail and commerce data from governments and international organizations is good quality, though the update frequency might not suit your needs.
Conversely, your own internal data is always up to date (barring server failure). However, data cleansing and analysis may need to be outsourced depending on your needs and capabilities.
Collecting data from third parties is generally reliable, especially if you are using a highly-rated vendor like one of the ones you will find on our site. If you are using web scraping tools or even manually checking competitor websites, however, be aware that the competitors that see your repeat visits with no purchases may show you higher prices than they offer to customers.
Monthly Retail Trade, Main Page – US Census Bureau
Talend: Big Data in Retail: Use Cases + 7 Examples
Imaginext: 6 Big Data Use Cases in Retail
ResearchGate: A Case Study Analysis of E-Commerce Strategies for Retail Businesses
Depending on the definition, estimates of the size of the digital economy range from 4.5 to 15.5 per cent of world GDP. Regarding value added in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, the United States and China together account for almost 40 per cent of the world total. As a share of GDP, however, the sector is the largest in Taiwan Province of China, Ireland and Malaysia. Global employment in the ICT sector increased from 34 million in 2010 to 39 million in 2015, with computer services accounting for the largest share (38 per cent).
—UNCTAD: Digital Economy Report 2019 (Overview)
The pandemic accelerated the growth of e-commerce by seven years within several months, according to John Koetsier of Forbes. In May, total online spending rose 77% to $82.5 billion, from the same month in 2019. … As a result of the intense competition, more orders and faster promises for shipping will put a burden on logistics networks, and smaller companies might face an increased risk of being without capacity, unable to control freight spending
—Talk Business: Big data can help e-commerce companies with logistics challenges, report shows
Since it purchased Aspectiva, Walmart has tightened the gap between itself and Amazon for online sales in the U.S., with Walmart accounting for 5.3% of U.S. ecommerce sales and Amazon accounting for 38.7%—a drop in market share from the 50% that Jeff Bezos’ company held just a few years prior. Walmart and other legacy retailers would be wise to continue to leverage cutting edge technology to help take market share away from the Seattle-based ecommerce giant.
—Digital Commerce 360: What the Fortune 500 can learn about startups’ approach to ecommerce