A Novel Framework for Collecting and Analysing Offline Transaction Data for Digital Marketing

Despite the importance of understanding customer buying patterns in offline environments, there is currently no effective data collection method for offline venues as compared to online venues. It is noted that for offline transactions, such as in hypermarkets, departmental stores and so on, customers transactions records are normally restricted to the relevant store, which makes it practically impossible for an external entity to be informed of the purchase details of a given customer. Consequently, little is usually known of the actual buying patterns of customers when conducting offline shopping. In this paper, we propose a novel framework, which can easily allow customers to use their smart phones to willingly provide their offline transactions data to a cloud based system for further analysis. Useful insights from analyzed customer data are then expected to support effective digital marketing activities.