Business Intelligence (BI)

Retailers share online insights

Speakers at the recent Internet Retailer Conference & Exposition in Chicago discussed how the retail industry is using a number of digital technologies to assist performance in areas such as CRM, marketing, driving customer traffic and converting sales. Following are a few brief highlights:

Tapping into the data to increase conversion — and sales

The quickest, surest and most cost-effective way to increase store sales is to improve each store's conversion rate.

It's estimated that more than 50% of North American specialty retailers have installed traffic monitoring/counting systems in some or all of their stores. But many retailers have failed to take advantage of the fact that the data these increasingly sophisticated devices generate can help them improve performance and capitalize on sales.

Dallas – Haggar Clothing Co. is supporting a planned expansion of its store presence in the U.S. and Canadian markets with the implementation of multiple solutions from Epicor Retail Software. Haggar seeks to open 10 to 15 new stores annually in the U.S. through 2017 and two to three stores a year during the next four years throughout Canada.

ARDEN HILLS, Minn. — Land O'Lakes has promoted Mike Macrie to the position of VP and chief information officer. Macrie replaced Barry Libenson, who after running IT for three years, left the company to be CIO at Safeway. 

Macrie joined Land O'Lakes in 2010 as VP and senior director of Ag Services IT.

Knoxville, Tenn. – Ruby Tuesday is streamlining facilities management activities across its 750 U.S. stores with the Web-based facilities services management platform from ServiceChannel. The ServiceChannel suite will aid Ruby Tuesday in executing such tasks as management of service requests, work orders, invoicing, payment, finding and managing contractors, repair and maintenance, and other facility issues.

Omaha, Neb. - Midwestern department store retailer Gordmans Stores, which recently announced plans to expand its store base nearly 40% over a three-year period, said it will move forward with the Oracle Retail platform as a means to support the aggressive growth initiative.

Roanoke, Va. -- Advance Auto Parts has promoted Donna Justiss to the position of senior VP and chief information officer. Justiss will be responsible for the strategic leadership of all aspects of Advance’s information technology area, including application development and support, infrastructure and information security.

ROANOKE, Va. — Advance Auto Parts has promoted Donna Justiss to the position of SVP and chief information officer. Justiss will report to EVP and CFO Mike Norona, and will continue to be based in Roanoke, Va.

She will be responsible for the strategic leadership of all aspects of Advance’s Information Technology area, including application development and support, infrastructure and information security.