Predictive Analytics

An article that recently caught my eye adds more evidence to my growing suspicion (and I know I am far from alone in this) that the near-term to mid-term retail outlook might not be quite as positive as we may have thought just a few months ago. The piece, “Gap Stands out Among Retailers in Tough Quarter,” in Women’s Wear Daily highlighted the sobering second-quarter numbers from a long list of big retail brands. As the title implies, Gap, Inc.

Mt. Laurel, N.J. - Spencer Gifts, LLC will deploy Retail 20/20 exception-based reporting technology from Agilence. Spencer Gifts plans to use the Retail 20/20 solution to build complex reports and dashboards and obtain near real-time visibility into store operations.

Minneapolis -- Christopher & Banks Corp. reported a loss of $265,000 for the quarter ended Aug. 4, narrowed from a $2.2 million loss in the year-ago period. Sales edged up 1% to $104.2 million from $103.4 million, and same-store sales climbed 7.7%.

Under the leadership of CEO LuAnn Via, the company is in the early stages of a turnaround, with store openings on tap for both fiscal 2013 and a longer-term three-year period.

Import volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to grow 5.1% in September over the same month last year as retailers head into the holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. 

U.S. ports followed by the monthly Global Port Tracker report, released by the NRF and Hackett Associates, handled 1.43 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in July, the latest month for which after-the-fact numbers are available.

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.

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.