Speaking last week at the Shop.org 2015 Digital Summit in Philadelphia, Doug Mack, CEO of Fanatics, the largest e-tailer of fan merchandise, discussed the challenges around delivering relevant offers to consumers.
Beyond Fanatics.com and Fansedge.com, the company runs the fan gear websites for every major U.S. sports league, many professional teams such as the New York Giants and Chicago Bulls, several major media firms, and over 150 colleges.
For Fanatics, the first step is identifying relevant merchandise. Demand for jerseys and other fan gear can swing wildly year after year based on a team or a player's performance. But the big win is getting an early read on "micro-moments" or when a surprising win or breakout performance creates a surge in demand for a team or player.
Once potentially strong merchandise is found, personalization is used to link relevant offers to consumers.
"Every day there are these great moments in sports but the question is how do you marry the right moment with the right fan with the right merchandise?" said Mr. Mack, who formerly ran One Kings Lane and co-founded Scene7.
Fanatics taps its database of tens of millions of customers to build profiles.
Doug Mack - Photo: NRF
"To begin to use that data to profile and build understanding of what given fans are interested in is a huge opportunity," Mr. Mack said. "And I know that is a pretty well-known discipline in digital retail. But getting that structure right and those categories right and the data collection right is super important."
Beyond its platform, social feeds can determine individual interests.
"Knowing where somebody lives, that's a really big clue for our business," added Mr. Mack. Many of its partners simply ask customers about their favorite players.
"When you bring all that in you can begin to really micro-dissect who's going to be interested in what," said Mr. Mack.
Asked in the Q&A session about the potential to be overwhelmed by data, Mr. Mack said to first step back to gauge how to use "structured data as a foundation" and explore the best way to classify. As data is gathered and used for profiling over a period of time, "you can then begin to get that sensitivity by different criteria, as to what is going to be the most needle moving and which areas are less important. But these are really hard problems to solve."
On the positive side, organizations that can gain scale and capitalize on the data first "are going to have a tremendous competitive advantage. Statistically, you'll be more likely to make better decisions in every inch of the business. It's going to be really cool."