Data & Analytics

Using Unified Retail Planning to Break Out of Functional Silos
Retail today isn’t for the faint-hearted. A recent quote from business magnate and investor Warren Buffet is quite telling, “I think retailing is just too tough for me, just generally.”
KPMG report: CEOs focused on physical, digital infrastructure investments
U.S. retail CEOs are optimistic about growth prospects. That's according to the 2017 KPMG U.S. CEO Outlook report by U.S. audit, tax, and advisory firm KPMG, which found that 95% CEOs of U.S. consumer goods and retail companies are confident about the growth outlook for the global economy, the industry and their companies over the next three years, despite potential technological risks. Their peers in other parts of the world, do not share the same optimism, the report found.

Walmart signs on for Facebook's new platform

The nation's largest private employer is working with the country's largest social network. Walmart has signed on to use Facebook’s Workplace enterprise collaboration platform. Launched in fall 2016, Workplace is designed to connect colleagues within a company, and allow them to message each other, share images and broadcast live videos.
Accenture joins Target and P&G as keynote speaker at cybersecurity summit

Accenture has signed on as the title sponsor for the Retail Cyber Intelligence Summit, which will be held in Chicago, October 3 - 4, 2017. The event is sponsored by the Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center (R-CISC).
Shoppertrak: December 2017 calendar to influence shopper behavior

This holiday season offers retailers something they haven't experienced in five years. For the first since 2012, there will be four Saturdays in December prior to Christmas Day, according to Shoppertrak, which noted that the busiest shopping day of the year will fall on Black Friday, Nov. 24. Saturday, Dec. 23 and Saturday, Dec. 16 are expected to be the second and third busiest shopping days, respectively. (The full list is at the end of the article.)
State of the Industry Report and Chain Store Age Top 100
Innovative retail concept in store expansion mode

A tech-savvy retailer with an unusual business model is expanding its brick-and-mortar footprint nationally. b8ta announced plans to open four new stores, designed by Gensler, with locations in San Francisco, San Jose, Calif. (Santana Row), Houston (Galleria), and New York City. The expansion, which brings the company's total store count to nine, kicks off with the opening of a store in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood on Sept. 29.
Report: Consumers to get early jump on holiday shopping

More and more Americans plan to get an early start on their holiday shopping. And they also plan on spending more. Nearly half (45%) of Americans plan to start holiday shopping before November, with one in four starting before October, according to RetailMeNot's 2017 Holiday Retail Trends and Guide. Retailers are capitalizing on this earlier start: Nearly 80% indicated they will begin holiday marketing efforts earlier this year.
The busiest online shopping day in history will be...

Black Friday is still No. 1 when it comes to setting sales records. Black Friday, which falls on Nov. 24 this year, will be the busiest digital shopping day in U.S. history, exceeding Cyber Monday (Nov. 27) for the second year in a row, according to a report by Salesforce.
Jewelry brand teams up with Mastercard on VR shopping app
Smart Energy Management Trends for Brick-and-Mortar Retailers

Commercial retail is a unique and rapidly changing space. With the rise of online shopping, retailers are creatively adapting to improve the experience of being in a physical store. Strategies like experiential retail make shopping a personalized and engaging experience instead of a simple transaction. Retailers are also providing customers with a more tech-friendly brick-and-mortar shopping experience in response to online competitors – the prevalence of self-serve check-out stations being just one example.
The impact of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma on retail sales

Hurricanes Harvey and Harvey had a similar impact on retail sales and the toll was significant on online spending as well as spending in physical stores.