Merchandising: Juggling Stats?

Without this kind of transparent communication tool, merchants can drown in a sea of irrelevant data points. As master product-line editors, merchants need to use those same pruning skills to hone their analytic reports.

“As time compression dominates most of our lives, the purchasing catalyst has never been more intriguing,” says Chris Tso, director of merchandising of technology products at music equipment cataloger Musician’s Friend. “When analyzing product performance levels, I refer to a balanced view of traditional catalog metrics, matchbacks and sales across channels. As customers become more channel-agnostic, knowing what makes the customer’s heart beat and multiple left-brain metrics provide direction for our merchandising decisions.”