Predictive Analytics

Haverty Furniture Company has been around since the late 19th century, but the specialty furniture retailer has a decidedly 21st-century approach to energy management.

“We want Havertys to be the company everyone wants to come work for,” said Rawson Haverty Jr., senior VP real estate and development, Havertys, during a session at Chain Store Age’s SPECS 2016 Conference, March 13-15, in Dallas.

Environmental stewardship, and thus energy conservation, is on the Atlanta-based furniture retailer’s list of 10 core values, Haverty explained.

Golf is a sport that rewards precision, and that extends to meeting customer demand across multiple channels.

That is why Atlanta-based, 25-store PGA Tour Superstore is leveraging the SPS Commerce Fulfillment platform to obtain actionable insights into back-end data that is crucial to support a seamless customer experience. This includes inventory levels, order status, shipment details, and payment and returns.

Industry veteran Jill Standish, senior managing director of retailer for Accenture Consulting, recently spoke with Chain Store Age about what she sees as some of the biggest IT-related trends facing the industry. Here is her take on the trends:

The warehouse is shifting from a building where you keep stuff to an intelligent hub that supports order management, customer service and general productivity.

More retailers are suffering data breaches, but the industry is also feeling an increased level of capability to deal with them.

According to a new study of more than 200 IT professionals from security technology provider Tripwire Inc., 33% of retailers say they have experienced a breach where intruders stole or gained access to personally identifiable information, This is more than double the 14% who had experienced this type of breach in 2014.

East Coast Wings & Grill’s ambitious growth plans are poised to benefit from a data-driven approach to site selection made possible by the Buxton Analytics Platform.

The casual dining chain currently has 31 locations and has signed agreements to add 80 new restaurants across the country within the next five years. To ensure those restaurants are in the optimal locations, East Coast Wings & Grill partnered with customer analytics firm Buxton.

East Coast Wings & Grill’s ambitious growth plans are poised to benefit from a data-driven approach to site selection made possible by the Buxton Analytics Platform.

The casual dining chain currently has 31 locations and has signed agreements to add 80 new restaurants across the country within the next five years. To ensure those restaurants are in the optimal locations, East Coast Wings & Grill partnered with customer analytics firm Buxton.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized Staples with a 2016 Energy Star Partner of the Year — Sustained Excellence Award for its continued leadership in protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency achievements.

Staples, an Energy Star partner since 1992, is being honored for the energy efficient achievements of the certification of 612 total buildings, and recertification of 33 buildings in 2015.

Whether you're in-store or online, the benefits of a personalized customer experience are undeniable. We want salespeople who can help us find exactly what we're looking for as quickly as possible; we return to lunch spots where all we have to ask for is "the usual." For e-tailers, personalization has traditionally relied upon recommendation engines, algorithms that look to match prior consumer clicks and purchases with like-minded cohorts. And personalization is indeed effective for those e-commerce sites.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the hottest topics in retail technology. While there has been a lot of talk about IoT’s status as a game-changer for retail, there has been less discussion on exactly how it will drive industry transformation.

Here are three specific ways IoT will bring about a new era in retail operations.

Automatic shopping