Predictive Analytics

By Steven Pinder, Tom White and Kurt Kendall    Retailers are being squeezed by growing consumer individualism, globalization and evolving preferences. These pan-industry pressure points are causing a proliferation of SKUs that retailers must now nimbly administer. And with online competition eating into already-low margins, the challenge for brick-and-mortar retailers is clear: Find a better way to manage assortment practices.  

New York -- Last week, SAP hosted its annual Retail Forum in the palatial confines of the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. Within the elegant surroundings a lot of very practical and down-to-earth information about the latest retail IT trends was dispersed. Here are three tech trends retailers should pay extra close attention to.   Predictive Analytics  

Outdoor enthusiasts have been given a host of new capabilities on REI’s newest mobile app – including the ability to check snow conditions at popular ski destinations.

Emeryville, Calif. – E-commerce technology provider Sellpoints has developed "Natural Selection," a natural language product selector. The solution uses the IBM Watson artificial intelligence platform to understand a shopper's intent, so instead of guiding shoppers through a series of complicated questions and checkboxes, Natural Selection allows them to type in phrases or questions in natural language.    

Armonk, N.Y. – IBM is introducing new partners developing apps based on its Watson artificial intelligence platform and world headquarters for its Watson Group, as well as new cognitive services that will be available on IBM Bluemix, IBM's cloud-based platform for mobile and Web app development.

While merchants have spent the past nine months developing plans to drive holiday sales, another group of retail executives has been preparing to deal with the dark side of Christmas.

By Jeremy Geiger, Retailigence

The headline is bold, but yes, 2014 is the year of hyperlocal mobile advertising, and there are three very important trends converging today to make this happen. The first is smartphone proliferation; according to eMarketer, smartphone users worldwide will total a record-breaking two billion in 2014. Now billions of people around the world have the devices needed to make hyperlocal ads possible.

Morrisville. N.C. – Same-store sales soared at Amazon.com and EBay during September 2014. According to e-commerce technology provider ChannelAdvisor, Amazon's September same-store sales growth came in at 37.9%, a decrease compared to August's 45.1%.  

Even with a decrease from August to September, 37.9% is more than twice the growth rate of e-commerce.

Alburtsland, Denmark – Danish grocery retailer Coop Denmark A/S is implementing the Galleria Retail Technology Solutions Behavioral Cluster Planner. Coop Denmark will use Galleria’s behavioral clustering solution to understand how categories are being shopped.

The 2014 holiday shopping season will be characterized by cautious spending, while economic realities create one of two American holiday shoppers — survivalists and selectionists — according to a new report released Tuesday from PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S. and Strategy, titled "2014 Holiday Outlook: Top trends, consumer behaviors and implications for retailers."