Carhartt dives deep into online consumer data

Vertical specialty workwear retailer Carhartt Inc. is gaining an unprecedented view into what customers want, when they want it.



Carhartt is leveraging the new IBM Commerce Insights solution that is designed to help online retailers evaluate category and product performance for quick merchandising decisions. Leveraging cognitive capabilities from Watson Analytics,IBM Commerce Insights provides a single view of customer behavioral, market and business performance data directly on Carhartt’s storefront.



Carhartt merchandisers have the same view that customers experience when browsing for potential purchases. By combining data alongside the storefront view, merchandisers can see how they are presenting their categories and products to shoppers, identify which are underperforming, pinpoint the underlying causes and take immediate action.



Commerce Insights also allows Carhartt users to search data using their own words, rather than specific technical jargon.



“At Carhartt, our planners and web merchants are experts on the categories of products that we sell, but they often find themselves caught up handling day to day operations and sometimes aren’t able to react quickly to opportunities that occur in the market,” said Anna Cole, senior manager of operations and merchandising at Carhartt. “Now our users will be able to see how market factors are affecting customers, sales and inventory on Carhartt.com in real-time. Then, using their own words, quickly visualize and explore potential trends behind the data, so they can initiate an immediate response and capitalize on the opportunity.”