Predictive Analytics

Chicago – The introduction of Amazon Prime Day on July 15 created a new mid-summer e-commerce event that had a profound impact on back-to-school shopping.

According to a new study from Market Track, Prime Day and the resulting widespread competitive response created a brand new shopping event only two weeks before the peak back-to-school shopping period.

The more we learn about real-world customer experiences, the more we see that we've been horribly naive about the role that mobile devices play in shoppers' lives.

Houston – Rising expenses resulted in falling profits at Francesca’s Holdings Corp., which plans to slow its store expansion going forward.

Francesca’s net income fell 10% to $9.3 million in the second quarter, from $10.3 million the prior year period.

Rising boutique and payroll expenses related to new store openings were the primary factor in decreasing Francesca’s profits. However, new store openings also helped drive a 9% increase in net sales, to $106.03 million from $97.02 million.

Ankeny, Iowa – Cost controls helped Casey’s General Stores Inc. boost profit even as revenue fell in its first quarter.

Net earnings grew 23% to $61.8 million from $50.1 million, driven by a significant decline in cost of goods sold.

Total revenue dropped 10% to $2.05 billion, from $2.29 billion. Fuel price volatility negatively impacted revenue results.

Casey’s annual goal is to build or acquire 75 to 113 stores, replace 10 existing locations and perform major remodels on 100 existing locations.

Toronto – Consumers are willing share their personal data with brands — even though they feel they aren’t getting much value in return.

According to a new study from marketing loyalty and analytics provider Aimia, 80% of consumers around the world are willing to share key pieces of personal information with brands.  

Yet only 8% of consumers around the world feel as though they are actually receiving better offers from companies as a result of sharing their details.

It’s a commonly held belief among retailers that their most valuable customer is the one that is a brand advocate, has the loyalty card, and makes purchases on a regular basis. But there is a problem with that assumption.

While the patterns of behavior from your most loyal customer can show you what is working, they can’t tell you anything about what isn’t working -- or how to fix it. In truth, a retailer’s most valuable customer is the one that comes into your store, browses, but then leaves before buying.

Armonk, N.Y. – Consumers are mobilizing for back-to-school shopping in a very literal way.

Mobile sales were up nearly 42% in August, reaching 25.3% of all online sales, according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark data.

During this time, consumers also used their mobile devices to browse deals, with traffic accounting for 49.4% of all online traffic, up more than 19% compared to the same period year.

I know what you’re thinking … another article about programmatic. But given the rapid pace of advancements in the programmatic space, we’ve entered a time when advertisers and retailers are forced to reexamine their strategy, take a closer look at what programmatic means to their business, and prioritize the pieces of the puzzle they should be employing to reap the greatest benefits.