Predictive Analytics

By Thomas Kiblin, [email protected]

Frenzied shopping trips, unexpected visitors and gift-wrap paper cuts -- I bet you thought consumers were the only ones suffering during the holidays. But have you ever thought that the holiday season is anything but fun for retailers IT departments?  It’s a time of scorching demand, long days and loads of customer transactions on systems typically not designed for peak performance. For retail in December, the pressure is on.

Chain Store Age recently conducted a survey of leading grocery executives to find out how the industry perceives analytics and how they are using analytics models in key operational areas such as forecasting, price optimization, space planning, and customer marketing.

Cincinnati -- Kroger Co. rang up better sales and returned to third-quarter profitability but the company warned that shoppers remain cautious.

The Cincinnati-based grocer reported Thursday that net income was $202.2 million, compared with a loss of $875 million a year earlier.

Revenue was up 5.9% to $18.7 billion.

Reston, Va. -- Online spending on Cyber Monday reached $1.028 billion, up 16% versus a year ago, representing the heaviest online spending day in history and the first to surpass the billion-dollar threshold, according to comScore.

Mountain View, Calif. - A report released Tuesday by Intuit Inc. found that small business employment continued to show growth in November, although wages were down and hours worked remained flat.

According to Intuit’s Small Business Employment Index, small business employment grew by 0.24% in November, equating to an annual rate of about 3%. This translates to approximately 49,000 new jobs created nationwide. The Index is based on figures from the country’s smallest businesses that use Intuit Online Payroll.

By Michael Haydock

The retail industry might just be the last bastion of the gut instinct.

In my 20 years working with apparel merchants, department stores and big box companies, I've seen bosses make bet-the-company decisions on little more than a "feeling." Retailing is that kind of a business - it's filled with wonderful visionaries who have an uncanny sixth sense for the nascent trend - or, the moment when a powerful trend is about to falter.