Resources

According to the WSJ, the snowstorms that blanketed much of the country in the past week caught apparel retailers in short-sleeves. Most clothing chains have very little winter clothing left on their racks, the result of tightly managed inventories and better-than-expected holiday sales. But, with nearly 70% of the country covered in snow, store shelves... Read more »

A recent RIS article  titled, “How Much Are Out-of-Stocks Costing You? Much More Than You Might Think”, By Greg Buzek, provides more evidence that retail out of stocks are costing vendors huge lost sales.  Buzek quantifies the scope of the loss; “A retailer that invested in completely fixing its out-of-stock problem, would gain a solid... Read more »

The WSJ reported retail sales Rose 3.3%, showing signs consumers are returning to stores.  This is a great sign for the retail market as it seems a turnaround may be in the works.  Macy’s posted a 3.4% increase, Saks reported 7% and Costco 8%.  As demand begins to increase, vendors need to keep a careful... Read more »

I went golfing the other day and got paired up with a guy named Henry. During the course of the afternoon, I came to find out Henry is a very successful business man who spent part of his career in insurance and now owns more than a dozen hotels in ‘retirement’. To me, retirement means... Read more »

The primary purpose of a store analysis is to identify the stores which are making the largest contribution to total sales. When the highest contributing stores are identified, an analyst can study the characteristics of those stores, including SKU assortment, demographics, promotions, min/max on hand, and make recommendations on how other stores can be improved... Read more »

Vendors are working hard to understand how to best use retail POS and inventory data, which is made available via EDI 852 or a web portal. Here are five very common questions vendors ask as they work with our team to put a data analysis solution in place. What is the difference between EDI 852... Read more »

Several times in the last few days, our team has been involved in discussions with vendors regarding the difference between reporting and planning.  Surprisingly, many vendors see these two as synonymous functions, when in fact the are distinctly different. Reporting involves looking at what happened in a past period.  The period could be five minutes... Read more »

As we speak with manufacturers about how they are handling POS data from their retail customers, we find they are having trouble with the “noise” inherent in the data.  One of our clients get a very typical EDI 852 file each week with units sold and units on hand for each UPC for each store. ... Read more »

The Accelerated Analytics team had the pleasure of attending the TPMA show in Chicago last week, as well as presenting a keynote presentation on POS data analysis. Some interesting facts about trade promotion: 53% of companies do not know if their promotions make money 50% of companies do not know if the promotions they run... Read more »