Big Data … Big Deal?

Jennifer Zurko

The July issue is always an interesting one to plan and create. It’s an important one because it’s our largest issue of the year and it’s also the one that gets the most attention because it’s rolled out at Cultivate. So the pressure is on every year to figure out what to do for the cover story.

Some years, it’s easy to come up with an interesting or controversial topic that will get the Cultivate crowd buzzing. I like hearing your comments when we run into each other in the aisles. Some years … it’s not as easy.

Thankfully, I work with some nice, honest Millennials (thanks, Mason and Seth!) who helped me come up with this year’s July cover story. The situation I mention at the start of my article on consumer data about the irate father who storms into Target after they send his teenage daughter coupons for baby items really struck me. I’m a regular Target shopper and I guess I never thought about whether they were paying attention to what I was buying.

But they are, along with lots of other retailers and businesses. And it made me wonder if growers and retailers should be doing the same thing.

The term of collecting consumer buying information is referred to as “Big Data” and it sounds like a big deal, which it is. Large companies with large marketing budgets are using the data they’re collecting to improve their products to make part-time customers full-time loyalists and bring in new ones. Imagine if you knew exactly what your customers wanted in their garden—wouldn’t having that information be great?

I know that a lot of growers and garden centers do some consumer research—even informal polls on your Facebook page count. But it got me thinking when I read that Target was using facial recognition software to catch shoplifters … could we someday be as high-tech with the way we learn about our customers? Or to catch shoplifters? (Actually, we’ve got info on catching employee thieves on the Green Profit side.)

The good news: That kind of information is available for you to use. On the other hand, it takes time and some investment, depending on how deep you want to dive into the info pool. But there are options.

 There may be skeptics among you (certainly when you think about a garden center using a facial recognition system), but it’s still good to keep up with the technology that other businesses are using. Because think about it—most of their customers are yours, too. If they can find out what their buying habits are, why couldn’t you? And now that we’re in an age where everything is shared on social media and saved on the Cloud, getting your hands on all that valuable Big Data is no big deal. GT