Data & Analytics

In reviewing Target’s troubled expansion into Canada, Kantar Retail breaks down the misfires into a finance-operations model:

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Home Depot’s CEO Craig Menear will take over as chairman of the board when Frank Blake retires Feb. 2.

Menear, formerly head of Home Depot’s retail operations, was named Blake’s successor as CEO in August, and the company said at the time that Blake would remain as chairman. Menear took over the CEO role at the beginning of November.

As media companies increasingly look for ways to boost profitability, the New York Times is leveraging its brand recognition by launching an overhaul of the New York Times Store.

The store is the online destination for shoppers seeking New York Times branded merchandise. But the new store will also sell personalized products that are curated for and recommended to each individual shopper, in addition to bestsellers like classic photography, newspaper reprints, sports memorabilia and books, as well as a wide selection of autographed and historical items.

Inventory visibility is a prerequisite for retailers executing omnichannel strategies, which is why RFID is enjoying a resurgence and something called the Tagged Item Performance Protocol holds great promise.

Inventory visibility has always been important in retail, but never more so than today when retailers of all types are looking to execute omnichannel strategies that involve ship from store and return to store capabilities. Omnichannel creates all sorts of new supply chain challenges that make it more difficult to keep tabs on inventory.

Walmart and Virgin Mobile USA are teaming up on an aggressive effort to grow sales by leveraging the popularity of shared mobile data plans.

The companies have launched the industry’s first no-contract data sharing plans, available exclusively at Walmart.

The ability to create an integrated and personalized user experience across all channels is the promise of a new omnichannel grocery solution from Grid Dynamics.

With the supermarket world evolving rapidly and shoppers demanding increased integration between physical and digital, Grid Dynamics released its Omnichannel Grocery Platform as an extension of the SAP hybris ecosystem of solutions. Citing statistics from BI Intelligence, Grid Dynamics said 3.3% of current U.S. grocery spending is online and that figure is projected to increase to 20% by 2018.

Minneapolis – Best Buy Co. Inc. had a happy holiday season, but the New Year is not looking so bright. The retailer is predicting flat to negative enterprise same-store sales during the first half of fiscal 2016.

Best Buy is basing this prediction on external pressures such as declining consumer excitement about high-profile products that sold well during the holidays, deflationary pricing and declining purchases of extended warranties.

Redwood Shores, Calif. – Retailers are sometimes accused of being laggards when it comes to technology and process adoption, but that does not appear to be the case when it comes to marketing. To assess marketing maturity across industries and demonstrate the business impact of modern marketing best practices, Oracle commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a global study of marketing decision-makers.

Denton, Texas - Sally Beauty Holdings Inc. has chosen MetricStream's Store Audit Management solution, to be deployed over MetricStream GRC Cloud. The solution will provide Sally Beauty Holdings with an integrated audit system to manage store compliance reviews, security, inventory control, and other operations across their stores in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

New York - Online specialty apparel retailer Bare Necessities is using the Experian Marketing Suite to plan, manage, execute and optimize all of its customer interactions in real time across any channel, all from within a single system. The Experian platform integrates customer data from any source and channel into an always-fresh central repository or more effective targeting, triggering and personalization of marketing campaigns.