Predictive Analytics

Atlanta -- The Home Depot reportedly expects a continuing recovery in the U.S. housing market to improve its sales later this year. In an interview with Bloomberg, Frank Blake, CEO of Home Depot, Inc., said steady improvement in the housing market should lead to private equity firms and investors renovating properties for rental.

New York -- Accenture and SAP AG are jointly releasing a new application called the Marketing Performance Solution by Accenture and SAP. Sold by Accenture, the solution enables retail chief marketing officers (CMOs) view and act on centralized key marketing performance data such as sales figures, media spend and social reach in near real-time.

Atlanta -- Small businesses are optimistic with regards to the upcoming holiday season, with 41% of businesses expecting a much stronger holiday season in 2013 than 2012, according to a survey by Kabbage, an online provider of working capital.

Small businesses also plan to increase their borrowing for the remainder of 2013 in order to meet the robust demand, the survey reported.  

Other key findings from the survey include:

Redwood City, Calif. -- Online fashion retailer Revolve is leveraging the eCommera Dynamic Action solution to perform daily analysis of a broad set of data points. By analyzing disparate information ranging from search and affiliate data to merchandising and shipping data on a unified basis, Revolve seeks to improve its business decision-making.

By Randy Dunn, Director of Global Sales & Professional Services, Tyco Retail Solutions

During the last decade, RFID has been pronounced dead several times. It’s been mocked and criticized. It’s been shelved and tabled. Yet, there has been no substitute technology offering the same unparalleled benefits.  

New York - The use of cloud-based enterprise storage and production applications, as well as enterprise spending on cloud technology, has increased in the past year to a tipping point. According to the Verizon 2013 State of the Enterprise Cloud Report, between January 2012 and June 2013 the use of cloud-based storage grew 90% and use of cloud-based memory increased 100%, mostly due to the shift of business-critical applications to the cloud.

Other findings of the report include:

Nashville, Tenn. -- Footwear retailer Genesco estimated second-quarter results below analysts' forecast. The company also slashed its adjusted profit outlook for the current year.

“We are disappointed that our second quarter performance fell short of expectations,” said Robert J. Dennis, chairman, president and CEO of Genesco. “Sales trends proved to be more challenging as the quarter progressed and results came in below our plan. The third quarter has gotten off to a difficult start with comparable sales down 3% through Aug. 24.

Despite challenges in the overall consumer discretionary spending environment, Shoe Carnival saw sales increases for the second quarter ended Aug. 3, which coincided with the back-to-school season, driven primarily by its selection of women’s seasonal and children’s footwear.

The leading retailer of value-priced footwear and accessories reported net sales of $216.4 million for the quarter, an 18.8% increase from $182.2 million for the year-ago quarter. Comparable-store sales for the quarter increased 2.6%.

Fort Myers, Fla. -- Chico’s FAS reported an 18.4% decline in second quarter net profit, after increased promotional activity took a toll on same-store sales. 

Chico’s net income totaled $43.6 million from $53.4 million in the year-ago period.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS

It's no secret that the volume of returned items goes up dramatically during the holidays, and providing a streamlined returns mechanism that effectively guards against fraud is a big and often overlooked part of the in-store holiday experience. Here are two solutions that take a slightly different approach to helping retailers deliver a returns process that rewards good customers, while detecting those with less savory motives.