Page 81 - Building Big Data Applications

76 Building Big Data Applications

evenings, Saturday, and Sunday all day. The core issue here is nobody knows when these
customers and prospects will come and what they will purchase. Who has been pro-
moted in a campaign, what percentage of discounts have been offered, what all vendors
are running the campaign. In the 1980s to early 2000s the businesses in the malls were
running as there was no other segment to attract the purchase of the customers. With
this situation, all vendors had customers and even if there were crossover of customers,
the exchange of the customers across the segments became profitable.
The customers and prospects entertain chatter between them and often these com-
munities that are formed become a word of mouth group for vendors, the special
products they sell and the best price points that have been experienced by these cus-
tomers (Fig. 3.3).
There are several lessons learned from this mall interactions segment. This entire
process tells us several things are important:
Customers and prospects are similar in behavior
Products can be sold in different segments by different vendors at different prices
Campaigns can be executed at any interval by any vendor
Different specialty stores will open up for every season
Profitability needs to be managed for all segments and costs
Returns must be accepted for a time period by the vendors
Customers can return any product within the specific period for a full refund
The analytics of the sales, customers, products, inventory, employees, associates, and
location will be available in 48 h approximately

In addition to these things, there are several aspects that are needed to manage and
execute:

Collection of data of all types and across the location for all segments
Governance of the sales

Mall opens for business
Vendors open their stores

Prospects arrive and stroll across the mall
Certain prospects turn into customers based on vendor good and prices
There are regular customers that come and shop for goods as normal
Conversations and chatter around the mall provide inputs to prospects
The word of mouth discussion leads to certain vendors profiting more than others
There is also the creation of customers from these discussions that mean more crowds at next week
These crowds form communities that become the brand creators and torch bearers
The events discussed here are the mall happenings, which can be experienced today if you need to see this in
action
FIGURE 3.3 Mall interactions.