Predictive Analytics

New York – Almost all retailers consider Big Data to be important, according to a new survey from Accenture Analytics. When asked how important is Big Data to their organization, 94% of retail executives answered “important,” 58% responded “extremely important,” and 36% responded “important.”

San Jose, Calif. – Retail performance has continued to improve throughout 2014. According to the RetailNext Composite Index analyzing more than 15 million shopping trips across specialty and larger format retail stores within the U.S., the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) rising for the fourth month is a positive sign for retailers going into fall season, and is reflected in uptick in conversion and sales per store of .4% and 4.2%, respectively.

Nashville, Tenn. – Cognitive computing provider Digital Reasoning has released Synthesys 3.9, the latest release of its machine learning platform for analyzing human language data at scale. Synthesys 3.9 provides capabilities to detect key risk and performance indicators in human communication and automatically connect and aggregate information based on those indicators.

Adidas has enlisted marketing technology company Unruly for its latest #predatorinstinct campaign, and as part of the partnership is piloting Unruly’s new In-Feed format. The new format adapts to the look and feel of a Web page in real time across the Open Web.

Houston -- Francesca's Holdings Corp. on Tuesday reported second quarter net income of $10.3 million, down from $14.6 million in the year-earlier period. Earnings and sales both fell short of estimates. The retailer also lowered its earnings outlook for the year.

Net sales rose 9% to $97.3 million, driven largely by new openings. Total apparel sales increased 14%, accessories sales increased 14%, and gift sales increased 25%. The gains were offset by a 12% decrease in jewelry sales,

Same-store sales fell 7%.

Francesca's saw improvement in sales trends for its apparel, accessories and gift categories in the second quarter of 2014. But these were offset by weak jewelry sales, which took a bite out of the retailer’s gross profit.

Ottawa, Canada - The retailers who “won” during the holiday season in 2013 were those that offered meaningful discounts on a sizable number of products on Black Friday instead of discounting a small number of door crashers. According to analysis from 360pi and Retail Systems Research, poor financial performance followed those retailers who discounted during the week leading into Black Friday, and those who kept discounts in place following Cyber Monday generally fared better than those who raised prices.

Dallas - Epsilon has signed a multi-year agreement with Bulldog Solutions to integrate its marketing technology with Bulldog Gameplan software. Gameplan is a SaaS-based marketing application that delivers optimized marketing plans through full-funnel demand modeling, collaborative calendaring, marketing-mix optimization, and dynamic reporting of marketing’s impact on business results.  

By Andrea Morgan-Vandome, Oracle Retail

Berwyn, Pa. - 4R Systems, Inc, a provider of inventory and supply chain services, and Impact Analytics & Services, a solutions and services provider to convenience store retailers, have launched a strategic partnership. The alliance was created to deliver more powerful supply chain analytics to convenience retailers, and beyond analytics, to increase profit from inventory across all items in all stores.