WHICH ACCELERATED ANALYTICS CUSTOMER IS ‘POPPING UP’ IN NEW YORK? VERA BRADLEY!

Vera Bradley has plans to open a pop-up shop in NYC, replacing a shop occupied by Kate Spade through the end of last May. Opening in September, the pop-up shop will be 2,700 square feet over 2 stories and will carry the entire Vera Bradley collection. The store will also be the grand debut of Vera Bradley’s redesigned logo and store concept.

The store is geared toward an omni-channel customer experience, with interactive touchscreens allowing customers to participate in the “It’s Good to be a Girl” campaign over social media. Three digital wall displays will display virtual patterns. A kiosk in store will open shopping on VeraBradley.com.

“We are thrilled to open our first Vera Bradley store in New York City," said Robert Wallstrom, CEO, Vera Bradley, Fort Wayne, Ind. "We look forward to showcasing our iconic collections and signature in-store experience to both the local community and tourists.”

Accelerated Analytics has worked with Vera Bradley to provide POS sales and inventory reporting and analysis for their key retailer accounts and independent specialty retailers since 2013. 

Source: Chain Store Age

Retail Sales Rose More Than Expected in May

According to the Commerce Department, U.S. retail sales rose 0.5% in May, beating a forecasted increase of just 0.3%. This followed a 1.3% increase in April and lifted sales 2.5% from a year ago.

The second straight month of gains was fueled by Americans purchasing automobiles and a range of other goods, suggesting economic growth despite a slowdown in job creation. Sales at clothing stores rose 0.8%, the largest gain in six months. Online retail sales, sporting goods and hobby stores all rose 1.3% last month and restaurant and bar sales climbed 0.8% Electronics and appliance outlets also saw a rise in sales with a 0.3% increase. Not everyone saw an increase in retail sales. Sales at building materials and garden equipment stores fell 1.8%, and furniture store sales dipped 0.1%.

The growth in retail sales could impact economist’s second quarter GDP growth estimates which are currently around a 2.5% annualized rate.

TAKEAWAYS FROM ACCELERATED ANALYTICS’ GS1 CONNECT 2016 SESSION: ‘The Importance and Value of Data Sharing – Using Point-of-Sale Data to Deliver Outstanding Customer Experiences’

I had the opportunity to lead this session last week and came back with some takeaways that I wanted to share, as I feel they are reflective of the state of retail today and how retailers and vendors are using point-of-sale data to manage their business in this time of OMNI-channel, customer-experience driven retail.

Customers want a single-vision of brands and be able to have a consistent, complete and winning experience every time they shop, in whatever channel they shop in. To ensure products are available when and where the customer shops, retailers need real-time inventory visibility, a seamless order management system and the ability to deliver. Retailers and brands realize they need to work together to have both a single view of the customer and a single view of their data in order to be successful.

Some interesting, yet not surprising, statistics were gathered from the retailers and vendors represented in the room. When asked about managing their POS data week to week, 66% were using POS data that was not provided via an EDI 852 file, eliminating their ability to automate the collection and processing of the data electronically, and instead having to work with multiple sources and formats of data. This process of data management and then trying to create usable reports to have meaningful partnership conversations between retailer and vendor is extremely time consuming: 83% of the retailers in the room spend 11-50+ hours per week managing and processing their POS data. More staggering was 95% of the vendors in the session were spending 11-50+ hours per week: 30% spending 11-20 hours, 40% spending 25-50 hours and 25% over 50 hours per week!

The good news is over half of the attendees in the room felt they are getting better at managing and using POS data each week, but 30% still admit to ‘Barely Using’ their POS data. Recognizing that heavy resources are needed to use POS data, especially on the vendor side, is making vendors ask, “Do we build an in-house solution to manage this, or outsource it?” CLICK HERE for an infographic detailing the pros and cons of each, and the differences in resource and financial investment.

Based on the time and effort being made by most of those represented, it is clear that POS data sharing is important for effective collaboration between retailers and vendors to “get it right for the customer”. POS data can be used to not just track units sold overall, but can give product/store level details on out-of-stocks, weeks of supply, sell thru %, average sales, geographic trends, inventory investment and lost sales opportunities. CLICK HERE for our industry sell thru % guidelines infographic.

We need to do everything we can to exceed our customers’ expectations and deliver an outstanding experience for them when they come across our brand. Sharing POS data and then using it to partner together to analyze it will help shape the customers’ experiences and give us inventory visibility and fulfillment across channels to meet customer expectations.

Want to learn more? Contact Jennifer@AcceleratedAnalytics.com to start a conversation. CLICK HERE to download whitepapers on analyzing POS data like a pro.

- Jennifer Freyer, Director of Sales and Marketing, Accelerated Analytics

Build vs. Buy: Outsourcing your POS data-reporting and analytics is faster, easier and less expensive than building an in-house solution

Retail POS data holds the key to understanding how your products are performing at a store level. But it can be a daunting task, not to mention a drain on resources, to gather, analyze and report on EDI 852 and POS data from all of your retailers. Our newest infographic compares building an in-house solution to outsourcing your POS data-reporting an analytics. While there are beneifts to each approach, outsourcing the solution is faster, easier and less expensive. Complete the form below to request our FREE infographic!

 

Warm Weather Expected to Boost Consumer Spending and Apparel Sales

Despite an expected snow storm in the mid-Atlantic States and New England, consumer spending and apparel sales should both rise as the weather improves, according to analytics firm Planalytics. In its weekly report, Planalytics said that warmer weather is resulting in “many consumers thinking and purchasing spring. The warming conditions during the Easter run-up period will help drive demand for seasonal apparel as well as live goods.” Looking ahead, the analytics firm said, “western locations can expect strong gains for both spring apparel and consumables.”

Last week, the warmer weather already had an impact on retail sales – but not in all regions. Chief economist of the Retail Economist LLC,  Michael Niemira said spring-like “weather continued to drive interest in spring clothing in the east over the past week, but cool and wet weather in the west curtained demand.” Easter sales are getting a slight boost due to the holiday falling early in the season this year.

Looking ahead, Planalytics said that businesses throughout North America can expect above normal temperatures in most markets over Easter weekend. “Sandals, short sleeve shirts, cold beverages and sun care will be in demand as temperatures rise above normal,” researchers said

Source: planalytics.com

Leading Solution for DIY POS Retail Reporting

At Accelerated Analytics, we work extensively with The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Wal-Mart data and we know how to integrate your item catalog, shipping data, plan o gram, and other key files for a comprehensive reporting solution.  With our services, you'll have more timely reporting in a consistent format available to any user with an internet connection, iPad, or iPhone.  Your analysts will be able to focus on the business instead of making spreadsheets. Plus you will have store / SKU level reporting.  Talk about powerful!

The Leading Beauty Industry Solution for Retail POS Reporting

NRF’s Big Show Recap

The NRF’s Big Show wrapped up on Wednesday after record attendance, and, as we unwind from an exciting week in New York, we find ourselves reflecting on the event as a whole and on the key takeaways that will impact Accelerated Analytics in 2016.

Matt Shay, President and CEO of the National Retail Federation, opened the trade group’s annual Convention and EXPO with a state-of-retail message, highlighting the event’s transformation under the strategic guidance of Shay and the NRF board.

“We’ve invested in attendee experiences, added a third day of exhibits and gained exclusive control of the entire convention center.” Shay said. 

The event saw record numbers, with 35,000 people in attendance and roughly 580 exhibitors. While the convention was dominated by technology companies, both those facilitating consumer-driven change in the retail industry and those designed to help retailers replace, upgrade and modernize their systems, very few occupy the niche market of POS data and analytics. “There were about 50 companies in the Data and Analytics section of the expo, but very few that do what we do,” said Jennifer Freyer, Director of Sales and Marketing for Accelerated Analytics.

As customer expectations continue to rise, it’s imperative that vendors and retailers have access to their data -  down to the item level -  quickly. Accelerated Analytics is well positioned to meet that need via our one-click access to SKU/store level sales to identify trends, optimize assortments and track promotions. Plus, our forecast reports and low inventory and out of stock alerts help our clients ensure the right inventory is at the right stores.

Our visit to the Big Show also provided the opportunity to participate in several meetings with GS1, as we work with them toward standardizing POS data sharing in the retail industry. This is crucial in expanding the retailer and vendor partnership for better joint planning, store execution and sales performance.

The event returns to New York again next year, January 15-18, 2017.

NRF SURVEY REVEALS INVENTORY SHRINK IS A $44 BILLION PROBLEM FOR RETAILERS

Inventory shrink, or the loss of product due to shoplifting, employee and vendor theft and administrative errors, costs retailers billions of dollars. The NRF and the University of Florida provided survey results this week stating that in 2014 inventory shrink averaged 1.38% of retail sales, or $44 billion.

Shoplifting accounted for 38% of the loss, followed by 34.5% in employee theft. The rest consisted of 16.5% administrative errors, 6.8% vendor fraud or error and 6.1% unknown loss.

While grocery chains have the highest shrink rate, home center/hardware/lumber/garden reported average shrinkage of 1.09%.

Tracking inventory effectively is key to managing shrink. Actual and accurate inventory counts eliminates the over/under counting in the results. Verifying product delivered is what was ordered and is accurately described in systems is also paramount – if an expected-sized item was not available, and the vendor ships a different size, but that difference is not noted, a retailer can end up with a surplus of one size, a shortage of another, and a dent in their inventory valuation. Inventory measurements should be looked at in both units and dollars. A retailer could be 99.5% accurate in dollars but only 94% accurate in units.

Shrink-related data is stored in different applications such as POS/point of sale, inventory, receiving and store applications. Having the ability to obtain reports that combine point of sale and inventory data in a timely fashion is imperative to take action quickly before the data becomes outdated.

Accelerated Analytics is a comprehensive service for collecting, analyzing and reporting on POS point of sale and inventory data, to increase sales, optimize inventory, recognize inventory shrink and respond faster to this information.

Source: Chain Store Age, ProSales

The Role of Analytics in Retail

The role of analytics in retail has evolved substantially over the past few years and it’s having a significant positive impact.  The days of hearing a vendor say “Oh, we get an EDI 852 but we don’t really do anything with it” are starting to fade into the rear view mirror.  This blog post will discuss some of the mega trends we see occurring in business intelligence in retail and their impact on demand planning and forecasting.   

Retailers are much more open to sharing point of sale (POS) data with vendors now than they were a few years ago.  Wal-Mart paved the road with Retail Link, which gives vendors access to a wealth of data, and most other retailers use EDI 852 or a web site of some kind to make data available.  [As a side note there are some major retailers like ACE Hardware and Publix that still refuse to share POS data, which is pretty amazing]  Mega-trend:  retailers will begin to expand the metrics they share and they will slowly move toward providing daily data.  We have recently seen retailers begin to share on hand data and sales dollars which they had not shared previously.  Providing those additional data elements enables category management and demand planners to greatly expand their analytics.  We are also seeing retailers begin to make daily data available, which is probably the most exciting development in business intelligence for retail.  Demand planning and forecasting for retail is dramatically improved by daily data vs. weekly data and daily data creates the opportunity for things like weather analysis.   

Key performance indicators for retail are pretty easy to define and calculate.   Sell-through, weeks of supply, year over year comp or % change, gross margin, gross margin return on investment, etc.    We find however that many demand planners do not have the time or tools to monitor KPI’s at the store / SKU level of detail which diminishes the value that should be realized.   Mega-trend: vendors are using cloud based software as a service (SaaS) to get access to sophisticated retail reporting without having to invest into business intelligence tools and a bunch of expensive development.   Retail point of sale reporting and analytics can basically be purchased ‘out of the box’ and then customized to fit your precise business needs in a very small amount of time.  When a large customer like The Home Depot is asking you to get into the POS data, you don’t have the luxury of waiting on your IT team.   Outsourcing your retail POS reporting and analytics provides a very fast path to keeping your customer happy. 

Mega-trend: Vendors use of EDI 852 and POS analytics will become more and more sophisticated.    Not that long ago, when a vendor invested in POS reporting, they were getting ahead of their peers by using technology to improve their business.  They would build relatively simple retail dashboards with key performance indicators for retail stores, like units and dollars sold.  Today, however, we are seeing increasingly complex analysis for demand planning and forecasting, complex retail replenishment models, category management and even weather and demographic analysis.  This is a natural evolution of business intelligence in retail and it is driven by the availability of SaaS tools and very real results that vendors are experiencing.

Retail POS Reporting - Getting the ROI

Numerous research studies demonstrate that retail point of sale reporting (POS reporting) provides vendors with a critical advantage in sales and inventory management.  But we often find a disconnect between the POS report and a hard ROI.  Why is that?

Many vendors that create retail POS reporting systems are managing what we call “rear view” metrics.   A rear view metric tells you what happened yesterday or last week, but it is not very helpful in making actionable plans for the future.  For example, a POS report which shows units and dollars sold for the last 4 weeks is a rear view report.  It’s helpful to know what occurred, but without additional analysis, it does not indicate to you what actions should be taken.  What you should be looking to understand is the trend that sales are likely to follow in the upcoming 4 weeks.  Is the trend positive or negative?  That is the key information you need to put action plans in place.   An inventory weeks of supply is another very strong future looking POS reporting metric.  By understanding your lead time to put product on the shelf, and then comparing it against current weeks of supply inventory, you can quickly identify potential stock outs, which kill your vendor performance scorecard and your sales. 

Many vendors do not connect the dots between the POS reporting at corporate headquarters and the store.  I have personally sat in many meetings reviewing POS reports with a vendor and asked what actions they have taken to address low inventory levels seen on a POS report, only to hear, “Well, there’s not much we can do.”  Although I know many vendors feel that is the case, I know from practical experience it is not true.  The retail buyer or replenishment manager will listen to a well thought out and well documented business case on modifying inventory allocations.  Just make sure you are prepared for that conversation with accurate POS reports and make sure your fill level is not contributing to the problem.   Buyers have sales and profitability goals to hit just like you do, and to do that they need to have the right amount of inventory on the shelf.  A word of advice – focus your pitch on a small set of test stores where you want to change the inventory handling and have a test scorecard report ready to show the buyer so they know exactly how you will track the results. 

In order to get the hard ROI out of retail POS reporting, you have to design the reports the right way.   The tips above are a good start and there are many more good ideas on our blog, so stay a while and dig around.  You can also jump over to the contact us page and ask specific questions.

Outsourcing POS Analysis

Why does an outsourced service make sense? Using an outsourced service for POS data analysis is a great idea, because loading data every week and managing servers is not your core business- it's an expense.  And worse yet, the data and technology change all the time, which makes them very expensive to manage in-house.

Accelerated Analytics® eliminates all the cost and hassle of POS data analysis.

The Accelerated Analytics® service includes:

• Automatic loading of POS data for each retailer
• Hosting of a custom database for all your data
• Detailed sales, inventory, and forecast reports
• Training for your users
• World-class analysis tools
• Phone, email, and web support on-demand

Better yet, here's what one of our customers said...

“Accelerated Analytics® allows us to quickly come up with exceptions reports showing when on-hand levels are below desired levels and even red flag zero quantities. With this information we are able to offer support to our retail customers stores that need it most and increase the service level for our customers overall. Having management type reports with charts showing information like our (upward) trend analysis on sales is invaluable.” Steven Pugh VP Operations Howard Products.

Frequently Asked Questions about Accelerated Analytics

What is EDI 852?   EDI 852 is a standard data format used to transmit product activity data. Files are typically sent daily or weekly and will include sales activity by product, and for some retailers, inventory on-hand.  Activity is typically summarized at a distribution center level, unless store level data is deliberately selected. Some EDI 852 forms will also include pricing information, inventory on-hand but unavailable for sale, order point, order quantity, and order status. EDI 852 is provided as a text data file using special character sets to describe the coded data to the decoding software. 

My organization is a manufacturer and our retail customers are offering to send us point of sale data.  Can we use Accelerated Analytics® to analyze POS data? 

Absolutely! Accelerated Analytics® was designed to provide business users with a simple and effective means to analyze POS data from both a buyer and manufacturer/supplier perspective. Our engineers can work with your team as well as the retailer to load the data into Accelerated Analytics® and format your custom reports.  

 

Can we use Accelerated Analytics® to analyze EDI 852 data?

Yes.  As a part of our service we accept EDI 852 data and provide the translation into a useable format for reporting and analysis.    

 

What's the difference between point of sale data and EDI 852?

First, the format of the data is very different.  EDI 852 is provided as a text data file using special character sets to describe the coded data to the decoding software.  If you open an un-translated EDI 852 file, you will have a very hard time understanding what you are looking at.  POS data, on the other hand, is typically provided in a text file with descriptive column headers, which can be easily opened and used in Excel.  Second, EDI 852 contains a basic set of product activity data, while a POS file is usually much more rich.  POS often will include cost and price information, and more detail inventory.

 

What retailers are you working with today?

A list of our currently covered retailers can be found here.

 

What industries do your vendor customers work in? 

Our customers include apparel, footwear, consumer products, specialty hardlines, health and beauty, pharmaceuticals, and grocery.

 

Do we have to setup our own reports?

Not unless you want to.  Our service includes many pre-configure template reports that we customize during the on-boarding process to meet our customers precise needs.  Templates are included for sell-thru, stock-out exposure, inventory on-hand, period over period sale and inventory comparisons, top selling items, and much more.  All reports can be viewed by product, product category, store, geography, time, etc.  The reports are saved and available to end users with one click of the mouse. 

 

What is collaborative forecasting, planning and replenishment (CPFR)?

(CPFR) Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment is a business practices that combines the intelligence of multiple trading partners in the demand planning and fulfillment of customer demand. CPFR was pioneered by Wal-Mart as a next step to efficient consumer response (ECR) and vendor managed inventory (VMI) and is now promoted by the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Standards Association (VICS). CPR is a proven retail supply chain improvement process.  

What is the bullwhip effect and why is it important?  

The bullwhip effect among supply chain partners is a situation in which the supplier has a clearer view of demand than the retailer, but a less accurate forecast. Traditional supply chains are extremely prone to this bullwhip effect; typical order fluctuations of +/-5% on the customer end can easily balloon to +/-40% on the manufacturer end, thus showing an increasing demand variation of 2:1 at each level of the supply chain. Accurate forecasting can help to eliminate the bullwhip effect and increase overall profitability by 5%. The most effective way of smoothing out bullwhip effect oscillations is for suppliers to understand what drives demand and supply patterns. Understanding demand and supply patterns is best accomplished through a detailed look at POS data.   

 

What makes Accelerated Analytics® unique?   

Accelerated Analytics® connects buyers and suppliers in a collaborative environment, where point-of-sale data is used to improve forecast accuracy, demand planning, and decrease stock-outs. The Accelerated Analytics® environment is a hosted service including pre-configured reports, world-class analysis tools, and color coded exception dashboards. These tools quickly turn data into actionable information and promote data based decision making.  With Accelerated Analytics®, there is no software to buy or install and Rainmaker Group does all the data processing. Read our full list of benefits. 

 

Who are some companies that have implemented collaborative planning forecasting and replenishment (CPFR)?   

Over 150 companies have implemented collaborative planning forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) including: Sara Lee, Wal-Mart, Schering-Plough, Walgreens, Kmart, Target, Eckerd, Safeway, Ace Hardware, Manco, Canadian Tire, Johnson & Johnson, Carrefour, Henkel, Kimberly-Clark, Marks & Spencer, Metro, Proctor & Gamble, Sainsbury's, Nestle, Best Buy, Scan Disk, and Federated. In all likelihood, there are many more unpublished implementations as well.  

 

How is my retail supply chain improved by demand planning using EDI, DDSN, or CPFR?   

Studies of retailers by Harvard Business, Grocery Manufacturers Association, National Retail Federation, and AMR Research show results of 15% less inventory, 17% better perfect order performance, and 35% shorter cash-to-cash cycles. The close collaboration between buyers and suppliers makes these improvements possible. Accelerated Analytics® provides the technology in a hosted service so there is no hardware or software to purchase.  

 

If our suppliers are not asking for POS data, why should I consider Accelerated Analytics®?  

It's not a surprise your suppliers are not asking for data. Most suppliers are intimidated by the prospect of asking for POS data and they do not have the tools to manage and analyze that volume of data. Successful business transformation does not begin as a reaction, but rather because business leaders have the vision to proactively invest in tools which drive their business forward faster than their competition. Research shows that when retailers proactively engage suppliers to collaborate on demand forecasting, 57% report improved relationships. Demand planning in the retail supply chain and collaboration between buyers and sellers, leads to more accurate forecasts and higher sales.  

  

Why can't we just use our electronic data interchange (EDI) system to send suppliers demand planning data?   

Many retailers have tried using EDI 852 to take advantage of collaboration and demand planning opportunities with suppliers. This is a natural first step; the infrastructure for EDI 852 is already in place, serving as the communication medium between retailers and suppliers. But most retailers are finding that sending out an EDI 852 document with summarized POS and inventory replenishment does not provide much benefit. Why? EDI does not add any new information; EDI is summarized at such a high level, it provides about the same detail as the purchase orders already in the system. The best a supplier can do with EDI 852 is load it into excel, because they do not have an analysis tool. In addition, parsing out a separate EDI 852 file every week for each supplier is time intensive. Most importantly, the supplier rarely has the tools necessary to accept the data and conduct effective analysis.

Improving Buyer Relationships Using POS Data

Time and time again, when setting up new vendors with Accelerated Analytics®, the same dilemma is expressed in some form or other: “We know that this product sells well here, but our buyer won’t listen to us.”  To determine why, the return question is invariably, “What evidence are you giving the buyer to back up your assertions?”
 
Almost as often as the initial question is expressed, the rejoining comment is met with frustration at the inability to provide the evidence the buyer wants to see.  This can be due to a vast array of issues, not the least of which is simply a lack of time to collect and analyze the available POS data and provide the buyer with real concrete evidence.  Conversely, it is rarely the case that vendors have insufficient data to make these conclusions.  As such, it is frequently a third party data analysis company that can provide the additional tools necessary to turn the POS data into actionable information for the buyer. Here are some tips:

1. Buyers fall into roughly two categories—those that are helpful and those that aren’t.  If you have a helpful buyer, you’re already a step ahead.  Work with the buyer to determine key performance indicators (KPIs) like target weeks of supply and preferred sales velocity for given items.  (Since these KPIs need to be managed at an item by store level, it may be necessary to use a third party analyst partner to assist you in building your database and reporting solutions.)  Then, track these KPIs for your products and show your results to your buyer—often you have better insight into your product activity in their stores than they do.  Since your buyer is friendly, work with him or her, using the information you’ve tracked and presented, to improve sales, limit out of stock, and prevent overstock.
2. The unhelpful buyer is more difficult, but by no means a lost cause.  For example, Wal-Mart buyers will almost always refuse to accept a push order of products from you, the vendor. But our experience with Wal-Mart is that this is usually because they have better insight into your product activity than you do.  However, if you can consistently demonstrate that your use of the POS data readily available to you would have rendered a more accurate result or better yield, then the buyer will gradually begin to trust your numbers instead of theirs.  This can be done, for example, by tracking your inventory, computing your weeks of supply, and showing your buyer, by item by store by week, which items you would have shipped to them and when.  If you can cross reference this at the same grain with a report showing out of stock stores, you can easily compute lost sales.   When, over time, the buyer sees the evidence presented consistently and the potential for increased sales, by simply doing nothing on his or her part except accepting an order file from you, you can begin to change your relationship with your buyer, and as he or she becomes more amicable, you can develop the type of relationship that allows you to discuss other KPIs as indicated in tip #1.

Managing POS data at an item by store level can be difficult and time consuming, especially when trying to build detailed, insightful reports like discussed in #2.  Accelerated Analytics® can give you one-click access to reports that will answer dozens of these kinds of questions and more.  

POS Analysis - Analysis and reporting made easy

If you are a vendor supplying to a retailer, you are no doubt receiving POS and inventory data. This can be a real headache since the files can be different for each retailer. Your team probably spends hours each week manually entering data, creating spreadsheets and then preparing reports.

Accelerated Analytics® can eliminate all of this wasted time. We will gather all of your POS data files automatically - no software to purchase or hardware to support.

Using Accelerated Analytics® makes all your POS reporting headaches go away. With Accelerated Analytics®, we handle all the data conversion, database hosting and reporting. We even provide training and the end user reporting tools. 

Accelerated Analytics® benefits:

• Eliminate manual data entry and manipulation
• Consolidate all retail data into one reporting database
• Pre-built exception reports with color coded dashboards
• No software or hardware to purchase
• Sophisticated charts and graphs

Available reports:

• This weeks sales and inventory by store and SKU
• Last weeks sales and inventory by store and SKU
• This months sales and inventory by store and SKU
• 6 week rolling sales and inventory by store and SKU
• Sell-thru
• Inventory turns
• Days supply on hand 

Accelerated Analytics® will give you the ability to anticipate changes in sales and inventory, so you can make adjustments before a costly mistake occurs. Our POS reporting is the best on the market. 

POS analysis for strategic value

Several recent meetings with vendors has highlighted a growing trend - POS data analysis has been and continues to be an operations imperative, but vendors are increasingly finding strategic value in POS analysis. EDI 852 forms the foundation of the analysis with UPC and store level sales and on hand.  But looking beyond sell thru and tradition metrics, a savvy vendor can use the data to present to a buyer planogram compliance and even sales plans based on localized assortments. How many of your competitors do you think have that level of sophistication to present to a buyer? This is a great time to look beyond the regular use of EDI 852 / POS data and become a strategic resource to your buyer.

Walmart Point of Sale Data Reporting

If you are a Walmart vendor, you have access to a wealth of data via Retail Link. As a service provider, we work with a lot of Wal-Mart vendors, helping them to analyze the point of sale data made available by Walmart through Retail Link. Sometimes a vendor will ask us “If I have Retail Link, why do I need to hire someone to help me analyze POS data?”

Retail Link provides a method for getting POS data, but as the vendor, you will be responsible for transforming the data and you will need a database to store the data. Both of these are critical to provide for comp week and comp year comparisons which are the basis for accurate and insightful POS analysis. The complexity of building a database to store Retail Link data is more than most vendors want to bite off since it requires hardware, software, and IT skills to accomplish.

What can you do with Retail Link data if you have it stored in a database?
· Analyze SKU/store level sales
· Analyze SKU/store level on hand
· Analyze average unit selling price by SKU/store
· Analyze planogram compliance by verifying on hand and selling at traited and valid stores
· Identify out of stock stores, and even forecast demand based on prior sales
· Create SCRIPT forecasts for your buyer indicating where inventory is needed to maximize sales and avoid out of stocks.
· Group stores into A, B, C categories based on SKU level sales volume.

Walmart buyers expect vendors to use Retail Link data to analyze and manage their SKU activity. If you are not already using the data, of if you are not using it as well as you could be, then you are missing sales opportunities. Don’t wait for your buyer to call you and ask a question you can’t address – start working with the data today.

Retail Point of Sale Analysis How To Guides

Analyzing point of sale data can be a daunting task for an analyst, especially when there is very little real world training available. That is why the Accelerated Analytics team has written four “how to” guides that share the secrets we use to analyze over 69,000,000 unit sales per week. Now you can get real world insight, available for download right to your desktop!

The retail data analysis “how to” guides provide category management and business analysts with a practical easy to follow approach for narrowing down large volumes of EDI 852 and retail point of sale data into manageable, actionable reports. Many vendors to Wal-Mart with Retail Link or vendors receiving EDI 852 are have a wealth of data available to them, but analyzing the data on a weekly basis can be challenging. These guides provide insights the Accelerated Analytics team uses to turn the data into improved sales and in-stocks.

If you are a vendor to Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, or any other major retailer, these guides can help you be more successful.

The series contains four “how to” guides with simple step-by-step processes for completing a:
· SKU Analysis
· Store Analysis
· Out of Stock Analysis
· SKU Forecast

Learn more and get your copy here:
http://www.acceleratedanalytics.com/download-whitepapers/

Making the most of POS data analysis

The Accelerated Analytics team is hosting an event in New York City on Feb 21.   If you are responsible for using POS data from your retail customers this is a must attend event.

NRF Show 2007

The Accelerated Analytics team had the opportunity to attend "The Big Show" today in New York City.  If  you are not familiar with the show, this is the annual trade exposition sponsored by the National Retail Federation.  Overall, the show is a good source of industry news and provides an opportunity to spend time learning about new technologies and vendors in the market.  The show floor can be a bit overwhelming, with thousands of vendors.  This year, we were struck by the number of empty booth spaces as compared to prior years.  It would seem the declining attendee rate has impacted the NRF like most organizations, although this is still a very big show.   It is very hard to gauge who is attending, but we had the opportunity to talk with representatives from Gap, Jo-Ann Stores, The Andersons, Wal-Mart, and saw many other retailers, so it seems the usual suspects are in attendance.  It does seem most of the attendees are part of the IT, store operations, or supply chain teams.  One conversation we had with a fairly good sized retailer regarding their supply chain vendor collaboration was a bit surprising.  This vendor told us they make weekly product activity data available to their suppliers, but only a handful really use the information.  This was a surprise because, as we work with vendors, most tell us the opposite is true - they request the data, but their retail partners are not filling that request.  In fact, something in between is probably true.  Our experience tells us retailers are generally making the data available, but in many cases, not in the format the vendor would like to receive, so they are challenged to do much with it.  This is unfortunate since there is much that can be done with the data.  Hopefully, more productive programs will be put in place in 2007.

If you are in NYC and have the opportunity to attend the show, make time to visit the Microsoft booth. (full disclosure, we are a MSFT partner)  Their booth is huge and filled with solutions for every aspect of a retail operation.  The representatives working the booth are overly technical, but if you ask questions about their client work, they can provide some very interesting tid-bits of information.  We especially enjoyed our conversation with the Project Real team.  If you want to learn about how a huge data warehouse is deployed at a real customer, you need to check that out.

 We dropped our cards into most of the fishbowls we found, so maybe we will win something:)