Predictive Analytics

Cousins Subs, a regional sub sandwich retailer with more than 100 locations in Wisconsin and Arizona, knows that a bigger sandwich isn’t better unless it has the right ingredients.

Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin-based Cousins is taking the same approach to corporate growth that it takes to increasing the size of its sandwiches. Cousins is partnering with customer analytics platform provider Buxton to develop site selection strategies based on core customer insights. Buxton will also identify new real estate growth opportunities for Cousins Subs in the Midwest.

I left Walmart to pursue what I saw as the future of retail. In my exit interview with Mike Duke (at that time president and CEO of Walmart International) he asked me what I meant by the future of retail. Having worked in the international division, Sam’s Club and Costco prior to that, the future I saw at the time revolved around leveraging data and managing technology to understand customers in a granular fashion and speaking to them directly as individuals with highly lifestyle relevant products and services.

Staples is condensing its 30 years of business knowledge into a new performance tracking mobile app to help customers grow their business.

Staples launched a new mobile app branded as Quick Wins to offer business-specific ideas, metrics and community support in one easy-to-access place. The retailer said its research showed that nearly three-fourths of small businesses want assistance getting their business metrics on track, yet 41% are not sure what business metrics they should focus on in order to ensure their success.

The New Year is here, and it’s time to make annual resolutions. When it comes to their IT activities, retailers should resolve to make improvements in the following three areas.

Innovation
The days of IT being responsible for “keeping the lights on” are long over. Enterprise systems are still required to perform basic but crucial tasks such as finance and HR, but any retailer looking to compete in 2016 needs to look far past the boundaries of simple task automation.

Smartwatch-based commerce only represents a sliver of total e-commerce, but that may soon be due for a change.

According to new research from Mintel, smartwatch sales are set to boom in the near future. While only 6% of Americans currently own a smartwatch, 21% of consumers who purchased a watch in the past 12 months say they are very interested in the smartwatch trend. And 24% of consumers have bought a watch in the past 12 months.

Retailers just went through an increasingly digital and mobile holiday season.

According to analysis performed by the IBM Watson business intelligence platform, the average order value for the mobile and desktop shopper combined was $127.49, up 2.5% from 2014 ($124.33).

Consumers also shopped via their mobile devices in growing numbers. Mobile traffic exceeded desktop, traffic, accounting for 52% of all online traffic. This was a 17% increase in mobile traffic from 2014.

In the coming year, seamless technologies that blend physical and digital channels will have a major impact on e-commerce.

According to Pitney Bowes, five key developments will primarily drive e-commerce in 2016. These are:

1. Internet of Things (IoT) technologies will drive better business outcomes

Mobile purchasing looks set for major growth in 2016.

According to new projections from Bizrate Insights, a division of Connextiy, based on month-over-month order volume in November 2015, mobile website purchases will increase by as much as 68% from 2015 to 2016. The peak volume during the 2016 holiday season may reach as high as 42%, nearly half of all online orders.