Data & Analytics

By Scollay Petry, OtherLevels

Top of mind for retailers wanting to better engage with shoppers in their brick-and-mortar locations this holiday season are in-location technologies (e.g. beacons) and the personalization tactics they make possible. According to MediaPost, about 20% of retailers already use iBeacons, while 54% plan to implement the technology by 2015. With the promise of immediacy and “in-store engagement,” others undoubtedly will jump on the beacon bandwagon soon.

Neither a surge in online sales nor a rebounding U.S. economy has been enough to lift Ikea, as the global furnishings retailer reported flat profits for 2014.

Ikea, which operates 315 stores in 27 countries, said net profit for its fiscal year through August rose 0.4% from the previous year to $3.76 billion, far slower than the 3% growth the retailer logged last year, and its 8% growth in 2012.

Analysts say the results show that IKEA is sticking to its strategy of lowering prices and broadening its e-commerce offering.

San Luis Obispo – In what could be a preview of Sunday’s Super Bowl performance, Patriots fans have been outselling Seahawks fans overall in the month of January by 258%. According to data from Shopatron, although in total Patriots fans have spent more, individually their Seahawks counterparts have been more zealous, spending an average of 15% more than Patriots fans on each individual order.

Franklin, Tenn. – About four- in-10 retailers plans on using both Apple Pay (43%) and predictive analytics (42%) by the end of 2015. According to a new study from IHL Group, “Retail 2018 – Retail Transformed,” things are looking up for both store growth and IT spend.

Cary, N.C. – The Pantry Inc. is heading into its pending merger with Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. in a profitable state. During the first quarter of fiscal 2015, The Pantry reported net income of $18.9 million, compared to a net loss of $5.1 million in the same quarter a year earlier.

Overstock.com rode the wave of e-commerce during the holidays to an 18% increase in profits.

The online retailer said fourth-quarter revenues rose 18.3% to $470.4 million as the e-commerce heavyweight increased its average order size to $159.

The retailer also said its gross margin increased by 0.2% to 18.2% due to improved warehouse efficiency, lower inbound freight costs and reduced credit card fees.

Sluggish traffic and weak performance in the consumer electronics segment led Hhgregg to post a 6.3% drop in same store sales in the third quarter.

The retailer reported a loss in profits from the prior year period and missed Wall Street expectations for both profit and revenue. Hhgregg posted a net loss of $86.9 million, compared to net income of $5.05 million, which was a wider loss than projected by analysts.

Dayton, Ohio – Personalization has become something of a “family value” for marketers. According to the Teradata 2015 Global Data-Driven Marketing Survey, 90 % of marketers say making marketing individualized is a priority.  

They want to move beyond segmentation to true one-to-one personalization in a real-time context. Faster, more accurate decisions are key benefits of using data for nearly two-thirds of respondents.

Other findings include: