Data & Analytics

By Jason Roeder,  PowerhouseDynamics

As weather patterns and energy costs become less predictable, the need to maximize savings, gain control and monitor energy usage with minimum staff effort moves from the “nice-to-have” to “must-have list.”

New York – Consumers are increasingly performing omni-channel shopping, and prefer personalized offers across the different channels they shop. According to a new survey of more than 1,000 online consumers from retail personalization technology vendor Synqera, U.S. consumers still prefer promotional content and coupons from traditional print media (magazine, newsletter/flyer, newspaper) (75%), found online (72%), or received after a purchase (62%) for future shopping.

New York – 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. reportedly had a difficult time meeting customer demand for Valentine’s Day. According to CNN, the retailer has sent apologies via Twitter and Facebook to roughly 1,000 customers for deliveries that were late, missing or damaged.

San Francisco -- Wine.com, announced the addition of Peter Elarde as chief marketing officer and Greg Tatem as VP, engineering to the Wine.com executive team.
   
"We're on a roll. Wine.com is profitable, growing, hiring and innovating," said Rich Bergsund, CEO. "Peter and Greg are bringing new energy and talent to our management team, and will be instrumental as we continue building Wine.com into a great company, great brand, and an exciting place to work."

New York – Social fundraising platform Kickstarter.com suffered a data breach that exposed personal data of some users to hackers. On a corporate blog post, Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler said that on Wednesday, Feb. 12, law enforcement notified the company that hackers had sought and gained unauthorized access to some of its customers' data.

Minneapolis – Security staff at Target Corp. reportedly warned management of the risk of a cyber attack before the retailer’s widely publicized November 2013 data breach took place. According to the Wall Street Journal, at least one security analyst at Target recommended the retailer perform a more thorough review of its payment network as early as September 2013.

In recent years, retailers have aggressively implemented in-store systems to track customers’ every move from the moment they enter till the moment they leave (hopefully including a trip through a checkout lane). Specific details such as how long customers spend in front of a display are also carefully monitored and analyzed. Technology now allows retailers to keep tabs on what customers do in the store almost as rigorously as they follow customer actions online.

By Richard P. Fennelly

It’s a well-known industry fact that refrigeration and freezer appliances, which are no longer exclusive to supermarkets, are major electricity “hogs” in retail stores.  

Understanding threats and taking advantage of opportunities is the name of the game in retail, and pricing intelligence provider 360pi has launched a new suite of tools that does exactly that.

360pi has launched 360insights, a suite of integrated visualizations and dashboard reports that gives retailers visibility into how they can immediately increase revenues and margins through adjustments to their pricing and product mixes.

More momentum for Pinterest and the emergence of social shopping are among the top social media trends that research and analytics firm Blueocean Market Intelligence predicts will impact the retail industry this year.

The firm analyzed the online sales data of the nation’s top 100 retailers from September through December 2013 as part of an ongoing global study assessing the business impact of top retailers social media efforts in a report called, “Social Media Effectiveness Index for Retailers”