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Reducing Out of Stocks
14 Mar, 2017 • Chad Symens
Probably three of the ugliest words for a retailer or vendor are — out of stock. Each and every time an out of stock (OOS) occurs, the retailer, vendor, and consumer lose. Revenues and profitability go down, and consumer frustration rises. This is not a newsflash; it’s easy to find a wealth of OOS research... Read more »

Data-Driven Series: Know Your Customer Type
06 Mar, 2017 • Chad Symens
Both The Home Depot and Lowe’s continue to focus on the “Pro” customer as the key growth driver for sales. In the case of The Home Depot, there are some interesting store attributes available to vendors, which The Home Depot uses as store descriptors. Last week, I was working with one of our customers who... Read more »

DATA-DRIVEN Series: What You Can Learn From Your Average Retail Selling Price
27 Feb, 2017 • Chad Symens
Last week, I had the opportunity to work with two different customers analyzing their sales at The Home Depot. One sells products in the paint department and the other sells into the building materials department. The analysis goal for both customer projects was to deconstruct their YTD sales and identify the factors contributing to higher... Read more »

What’s New in Digital and Social Media for Beauty?
10 Feb, 2017 • Helen Thomas
At Accelerated Analytics, I work with over 20 beauty brands to supply key reports and analysis of how their products are performing at their retail stores. Our expertise, based on years of working with beauty retailers like Dillard’s, Ulta, Sephora and Nordstrom, help account executives, planners and sales reps to track sales to goals, store... Read more »

Are Omnichannel Shoppers More Valuable to Retailers?
07 Feb, 2017 • Helen Thomas
That’s the question that the Harvard Business Review set out to answer in a recent study conducted between June 2015 and August 2016. They collaborated with a major U.S. Company which operates hundreds of retail stores across the country and studied the behavior of 46,000 shoppers. The customers were asked about “every aspect of their... Read more »

Accelerated Analytics Customers L’Oreal and Coty Ink Big Business Deals in the New Year
12 Jan, 2017 • Helen Thomas
The string of beauty deals continues in the new year with significant beauty acquisitions for Accelerated Analytics customers L’Oréal and Coty, all within a 48-hour period earlier this week. L’Oréal will almost double the size of its Active Cosmetics Division with the acquisition of CeraVe, AcneFree and Ambi for a reported $1.3 billion. Founded in... Read more »

Stanley Black and Decker to buy Craftsman
06 Jan, 2017 • Helen Thomas
The latest in a recent flurry of moves to raise cash, Sears Holding announced Thursday that it will sell its well-known Craftsman tools brand to Stanley Black and Decker. The value of the deal could top $1 billion. Stanley will pay $525 million up front – the deal is expected to close later this year... Read more »

Robert Lighthizer Named Chief Trade Negotiator
04 Jan, 2017 • Helen Thomas
Yesterday, President-elect Trump named veteran Washington trade lawyer Robert Lighthizer as his chief trade negotiator in a move that confirms Mr. Trump’s intention to get tough with China, Mexico and other trade partners. Lighthizer, who is with the firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom and was deputy trade representative during the Reagan administration, would replace... Read more »

The Omnichannel Holiday Challenge with Store Inventory and Forecasting
20 Dec, 2016 • Helen Thomas
Holiday shoppers have just a few more days to get their shopping done. Do they order online and get it shipped? Do they order online and then pick up in store? Or do they go into a store hoping to walk out with the items they want to purchase? Retailers have the challenge of meeting... Read more »