Driving retail competitiveness with data-driven insights

The STFC Hartree Centre helped Liverpool-based company Margin Guardian to quantify benefits of a data insight and targeting app for fashion retailers and consumers through the ERDF-funded LCR4 START programme.

Challenge

As consumers are increasingly drawn to the convenience of online shopping, whether through websites or apps, the retail analytics sector is also expanding in its potential to drive sales, boost revenue and enhance customer satisfaction. Margin Guardian offers data insights and targeting services to fashion retailers. By highlighting elements like price or viewed/saved products from the consumer, they enable fashion retailers to make informed decisions on markdowns of stock to enhance profit margins. Their Squished app also allows consumers to set the price they want to pay and notifies when prices drop to meet their preferences This service is valuable to both consumers and retailers, but Margin Guardian were looking to be able to quantify the benefits the app could deliver and identify additional insights they could offer retailers to enhance their product. 

Approach

The Hartree Centre’s data science team carried out some exploratory data analysis, which identified the initial benefit value of working with Margin Guardian’s Squished app for the retailer in competitiveness and profit. The project combined insight and expertise from both the retail sector and the data science field to identify other valuable insights for the company and created a roadmap that can be built out in future and developed as the app grows in user numbers.  

Benefits

This work enabled Margin Guardian to quantify the benefits retailers would realise from working with them, allowing them to grow their business by offering a data science-informed marketing approach they could use to target the fashion industry. The project also enhanced the company’s competitive advantage by identifying a new strategic opportunity for the business and expanding the sectors of retailers they work with. By continuing to ensure their products address a genuine need for retailers and consumers and developing a new digital adoption roadmap, this work will support the future growth of the business.

“The quality of the Hartree Centre analysis enabled us to see the specific value we can offer different retailers which is crucial to the development of our business.”

Richard Blanchard, Margin Guardian