Data & Analytics

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."

Demand forecasting helps Curacao react to cultural shifts

Any good retailer gets to know its customers, and not just their product preferences but also who they are, where they come from and what they aspire to. This type of intimate knowledge allows retailers to forecast and meet product demand with the highest degree of accuracy.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — When one thinks of space exploration and space travel, Paypal is hardly the first thing that comes to mind. But the eBay company is spearheading an initiative that is paving the way for space commerce.

With the help of the SETI Institute and the Space Tourism Society, PayPal Galactic aims to make universal space payments a reality. Paypal president David Marcus was joined by astronaut and author Buzz Aldrin to announce the initiative’s launch. 

Tapping into the data to increase conversion — and sales

The quickest, surest and most cost-effective way to increase store sales is to improve each store's conversion rate.

It's estimated that more than 50% of North American specialty retailers have installed traffic monitoring/counting systems in some or all of their stores. But many retailers have failed to take advantage of the fact that the data these increasingly sophisticated devices generate can help them improve performance and capitalize on sales.