If you own a brick-and-mortar retail store, you likely understand how competitive the market can be. And you usually need more than great products to stay ahead of the curve — you need to be able to optimize your store merchandising and operations to ensure that customers have the best possible experience.

But one sure way to improve your store performance is to understand how customers interact with your store. That’s where scan data comes in.

Scan data is information that registers every time you scan a product’s barcode at the point of sale. This data gives retailers valuable insights into customer behavior, such as what products customers purchase and how often the customers visit the store. Discover how to leverage scan data to boost your retail store’s bottom line.

Track Inventory Levels and Sales Patterns

Scanned data gives you insights into which products sell quickly and which ones sit on shelves. With this information, you can determine which products your customers love most, and perhaps you may dig deeper to understand the product’s unique selling point.

For example, suppose you are a beauty store owner. You sell twenty lipsticks and two or three bottles of spray on a good day. This data means that the latter will mostly be dead stock, so you may want to rethink restocking the product.

Improve In-Store Merchandising

In-store merchandising plays a significant role in the customer experience. And scan data can help you understand which products customers pick up and which products customers put back on the shelves.

For example, assume you own a clothing store and want to optimize your sales floor layout. If you analyze scan data, you may find that customers pick up shirts from the racks but put the shirts back on the shelf before they reach the register.

This behavior could be because the shirts are too far away from the register or because the shirt size is not marked. Such information helps you to understand how customers interact with products in your store. In return, you can change your layout and merchandising to improve the customer experience and increase sales.

Optimize Price

As mentioned, scan data helps you understand which products sell fast and how often. With such insights, you can set your prices to be competitive.

For example, in the case of lipstick and setting spray, lipstick is likely more in high demand. Therefore, you may decide to increase the prices and still retain your customers. On the other hand, you may need to lower the prices of the setting spray to lure buyers and help you get the inventory off the shelves.

Pricing is a complex issue. And while numerous aspects come in when making changes, with scan data, you can be sure that your prices are in line with customer demand.

Negotiate With Suppliers

You probably don’t want to stock up on products that sit on the shelves for too long. But perhaps because you feel that failure to stock the product will push some customers away, you may need to lower the prices.

The only way to lower product prices and remain profitable is if your supplier also reduces the costs. Therefore, you can leverage scan data to negotiate better terms with your suppliers.

Besides price, you can use the scan data to get better terms, such as longer payment terms or higher quality products. But, again, the goal is to get the best possible deals for your products.