Use cases

Questions your teams can ask their customer data

Every use case starts with a real question. Each one gives you the short answer, how to work it out, what the result looks like, and what to do next.

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Retail

Finance, marketing, merchandising, ecommerce, loyalty and store teams

114 use cases

What is a customer data use case?

A customer data use case is a specific business question that needs joined-up customer data to answer. It usually combines purchase history, product cost, stock and engagement data so a team can see which customers, products or channels are driving revenue and margin.

The best use cases end in a decision. A finance team that finds which lines lose money after returns can reprice or delist them. A marketing team that spots its best customers going quiet can reach them before they lapse.

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Filter by outcome or jump straight to your team. Every question links to its full answer.

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Grow revenue
Grow margin
Reduce cost
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Executive

Where profit really comes from, which customers drive it and what is at risk.

Grow revenue
What does my customer base look like right now, split by active, lapsing, inactive and churned? How has that mix shifted against this time last year?
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Grow revenue
How much of this year's revenue came from customers I already had, against customers I acquired?
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Reduce cost
Which acquisition source produces customers who come back, not just customers who convert?
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Reduce cost
How many people in my paid acquisition audiences are already my customers?
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Grow margin
Rank my categories by margin contribution rather than revenue. Where am I busy but not profitable?
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Grow revenue
If churn continues at the current rate, what does my active customer base look like in 12 months?
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Grow margin
Am I becoming more dependent on discounting to hold revenue? Show me discount penetration and depth over the last three years.
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Grow margin
We are ahead of plan. Is that real demand, or is discount pulling sales forward?
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Grow revenue
Are we tracking to budget this quarter? If not, where is the gap coming from?
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Grow margin
Which of my top 20 revenue lines are actually losing money once discount and returns come off the cost price?
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Reduce cost
How much working capital is tied up in stock that has not sold in six months, and who would buy it?
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Grow revenue
Which states and catchments are growing in customers and revenue, and which are quietly declining?
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Grow revenue
Compare customers who shop both online and in store against single channel customers. How many of each, and what is the annual spend difference?
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Finance

Margin by category, discount depth, returns cost and the value sitting in stock that is not moving.

Grow margin
Which lines have a return rate above 20% and a margin below 30%? Every one of those sales costs me twice.
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Grow margin
What was the average discount depth by department during Boxing Day compared with the rest of the quarter?
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Reduce cost
What is the value of stock sitting in lines that have not sold in six months, and which customers would buy them?
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Grow margin
What share of units in each category sold at full price over the last 12 months?
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Grow margin
Estimate gross margin by category using product cost against the price customers actually paid.
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Reduce cost
Which stores are holding the most stock in my lowest margin lines?
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Grow margin
What is my realised price against list price by category, and where is the biggest leak?
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Grow revenue
What does a new customer spend in their first 12 months, by the channel they first bought through?
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Grow margin
What is net revenue per customer segment after discount and returns, not gross?
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Grow margin
What happens to revenue and margin if I hold the promotional calendar flat next year?
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Grow revenue
Show me revenue by financial quarter for the last two financial years, on our financial year, not calendar.
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Grow revenue
What is my average order value by channel over the last 12 months, and which way is it moving?
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Grow revenue
Based on how last year's cohort behaved, what will the customers I acquired this quarter spend over the next 12 months?
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Grow margin
Which categories are growing in revenue but shrinking in margin?
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Marketing & CRM

Audiences, retention and campaigns judged by the customers they bring back.

Move faster
Push my Champions segment to Klaviyo, Meta and Google Ads.
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Grow margin
How big is my discount seeking segment, what share of revenue do they represent, and what is their margin against everyone else?
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Grow revenue
Which one-time buyers are most likely to buy again if I reach them now?
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Grow revenue
Build a lookalike seed from my highest value customers, seeded on value rather than recency.
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Grow revenue
Which of the customers I acquired this quarter are least likely to come back, and what did they buy first?
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Grow margin
Which campaigns drove revenue but destroyed margin once the discount was applied?
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Grow revenue
Build a winback audience: lapsing loyalty members who opened an email in the last six months, excluding anyone I have already sent a winback to this quarter. How many people is that?
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Grow margin
Which discount level acquires customers who go on to buy at full price?
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Grow revenue
Which of my VIPs are going quiet before they churn, and what are they worth over the next 12 months?
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Grow margin
Plan my end of season sale: who to target, in what order, on which channels, and at what discount.
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Move faster
Rank my lapsing customers by how likely they are to respond, ahead of how much they used to spend.
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Reduce cost
Which existing customers are sitting in my paid acquisition audiences? Build me a suppression list.
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Grow revenue
Of the customers I acquired in the first half of last year, what share came back for a second purchase within six months?
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Grow revenue
Which campaigns in the last 90 days drove the most attributed revenue, and which attribution method did you use?
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Reduce cost
If I cut one sale period from the calendar, which one contributes the least new customer activity?
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Reduce cost
How many people on my named email list are not actually subscribed?
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Grow margin
Which customers will buy at full price, and which will wait for the sale?
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Ecommerce

First purchases, second purchases and what online behaviour says about lifetime value.

Grow revenue
Which categories over-index online against in store, and where is the biggest channel skew?
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Grow margin
What is the average order value difference between orders placed during sale periods and outside them?
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Grow revenue
Which first-purchase category predicts the highest lifetime value?
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Grow revenue
Do customers in high density postcodes buy differently to low density ones?
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Grow margin
What is my online return rate against store return rate by category, and where is returns cost eating the margin?
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Reduce cost
Which products have high stock on hand and low online sell-through? Who would buy them at full price?
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Grow revenue
Of customers whose first purchase was online, what share have since bought in a store?
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Grow revenue
Which categories do my customers never cross into, and what is that worth?
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Grow revenue
What is this customer likely to buy next, and when?
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Grow revenue
Which of my single category customers look most like my multi-category customers?
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Grow revenue
Of the people who clicked an email in the last 90 days, what share bought within seven days and what did they buy?
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Grow revenue
Which acquisition channel produces the highest repeat purchase rate in the first six months?
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Grow margin
The customers I acquired through my highest volume campaigns are not coming back. What did they buy first, and did they buy on discount?
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Grow revenue
Which products are my high value customers likely to buy next season?
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Merchandising & buying

Range decisions grounded in demand, cost, stock cover and how much discount each line really needs.

Grow margin
Which products should I stop selling, and what would I lose in customers and margin if I did?
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Reduce cost
Which products am I carrying only because they have always been there?
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Reduce cost
If I cut the bottom 20% of my range, what happens to revenue, margin and working capital?
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Grow margin
I need to clear a set dollar value of aged stock. Which customer segment should I target, and what is the smallest discount that will move it?
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Grow revenue
Which products acquire customers who go on to become high value, even though the product itself barely makes money?
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Grow margin
Rank my top 15 brands by margin per unit against average discount depth. Which brands am I subsidising?
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Grow margin
Which subcategories rely on sale periods for more than half their annual volume?
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Grow margin
Which products have the highest return rate, and does it correlate with buying unseen online?
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Grow revenue
What do customers buy next after a first purchase in my biggest category, and how long after?
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Move faster
Which categories are trending down early enough for me to act before the season lands?
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Reduce cost
Which lines are overstocked in one region and selling out in another?
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Reduce cost
What depth should I buy this category at next season, based on demand and sell-through?
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Grow revenue
What are the most common product categories that are purchased together in a single order?
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Grow revenue
Where are the gaps in my price ladder, and where is demand actually concentrated?
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Grow margin
Which products could I hold at full price without losing volume?
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Grow revenue
Which of my low volume products are worth keeping because of who buys them or what they buy alongside?
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Retail operations

Store performance seen through the customers each store serves.

Grow revenue
Which catchments have the lowest customer penetration relative to purchase activity? Where am I underweight?
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Grow revenue
How many customers in my catchment have not shopped in 12 months but are still opening our emails?
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Grow revenue
Rank stores in my state by revenue over the last 12 months, and separately by new customer acquisition.
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Grow revenue
Which of my sales assistants convert the most single item baskets into multi item baskets?
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Grow revenue
Which stores have the most customers at risk of lapsing next quarter?
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Grow revenue
Compare the new store against the network average for its first six months: revenue ramp, average order value and repeat rate.
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Reduce cost
Which stores are holding stock that is not selling in their catchment but is selling elsewhere?
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Move faster
Give me a demand forecast by state for next quarter.
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Grow revenue
Give me a sales assistant leaderboard for my store: revenue, average order value and units per transaction this quarter.
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Grow revenue
We closed a store. What happened to its customers? Did they shift to the nearest store, move online, or stop buying?
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Grow margin
Which stores are discounting hardest, and what is that costing me in margin per transaction?
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Grow revenue
What is my average units per transaction by store, and where is the upside?
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Grow revenue
Which add-on has the highest attach rate, and which stores are missing it?
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Size the opportunity first

Free calculators that put a number on the questions above. No sign-up.

Retail customer data scorecard
Eight questions about your customer data so you can see where the opportunity is.
Discount dependency calculator
How much of your gross profit the promotional calendar actually consumes.
Retention revenue gap calculator
The revenue sitting between your repeat purchase rate and the retailers who do it well.
One-time buyer calculator
Most retailers find 50-80% of their customers never buy twice. Work out how much revenue sits in your one-time buyers.
Margin-adjusted customer lifetime value calculator
A calculator that takes out returns and cost of goods to show you how much a customer is really worth.

Frequently asked questions

What is a customer data use case?

A customer data use case is a specific business question that needs joined-up customer data to answer, such as which product lines lose money after returns. It usually combines purchase, product cost, stock and engagement data so a team can act on the result.

Do I need an analyst to answer these questions?

No. Each question is written the way a team would ask it. In Lexi you type the question in plain language and get the answer, the method behind it and the option to build an audience from the result.

What data do these questions need?

Most need purchase history across online and in-store sales. Margin questions also need product cost, and stock questions need inventory data.

Which industries do these use cases cover?

Retail, with hospitality coming soon. Each use case is grouped by industry and by the team most likely to ask it.

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