Data & Analytics

Retailers share online insights

Speakers at the recent Internet Retailer Conference & Exposition in Chicago discussed how the retail industry is using a number of digital technologies to assist performance in areas such as CRM, marketing, driving customer traffic and converting sales. Following are a few brief highlights:

ARDEN HILLS, Minn. — Land O'Lakes has promoted Mike Macrie to the position of VP and chief information officer. Macrie replaced Barry Libenson, who after running IT for three years, left the company to be CIO at Safeway. 

Macrie joined Land O'Lakes in 2010 as VP and senior director of Ag Services IT.

Welcome to the new and improved Chain Store Age! We've changed the size of our magazine (yes, the pages are bigger — it's not your imagination), and updated the style and size of our type fonts with the goal of making CSA more reader-friendly and allowing us to incorporate more visuals going forward. We've also introduced a new logo, one that better reflects retailing's omnichannel environment.

Union, N.J. – Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. reported positive financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2013. Although net earnings fell from $206.8 million to $202.5 million, net earnings per diluted share increased roughly 4.5% from $0.89 to $0.93.

Price, location and selection fade as real differentiators

Remember when retail gurus used to say that when it came down to it, retail strategy was all about location, location, location? Location still matters, but not as much as it used to. With the explosion of online retail, brick-and-mortar retail strategies are changing. But it's not just location that has receded in importance. Price and selection don't matter as much anymore either.

Somerset, England – British fashion retailer Mulberry operates vertically, selling its own products through a chain of 110 stores. Needing to support this endeavor through improved customer service levels, higher operational efficiency and a more responsive supply chain, in first quarter 2013 Mulberry selected JDA demand and fulfillment solutions, which the retailer will deploy though the JDA cloud services offering.

Washington, D.C. – Shop.org, the digital retail division of the National Retail Federation (NRF), named six new members to its board of directors and also reappointed three existing members. All nine members will serve two-year terms.

ERP solution helps online sports retailer Fanatics respond to customer demand

Retail at its core is a pretty straightforward industry. Regardless of a retailer's vertical, sales channel(s), customer base, or any other distinguishing characteristic, at the end of the day the goal is pretty much the same. Jay Omdahl, VP enterprise resource planning for online sports merchandise retailer Fanatics, sums it up succinctly: "Get the best product at the right time to the right place."