Analytics

With margins already tightened by the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the oft-undetected but constant siphon of funds caused by fraud is devastating for retailers. A recent study revealed the cost of fraud to U.S. retailers and e-commerce companies rose 7 percent in 2020, with every $1 of fraud costing companies $3.36 in losses.…

We've rounded the corner and thank goodness we feel the country is on the backside of the COVID pandemic. What a ride it has been! It's far from over, but under control. For many consumer companies, COVID caused a surge in business with more people working and shopping from home. It has put pressure on…

For businesses, the global health crisis turned digital transformation from a marathon into a sprint — particularly for retail and consumer goods companies. Businesses had to quickly condense their road maps for digital transformation, in many cases pivoting from a three-year timeline to a three-month timeline. While the abrupt race to go digital has been…

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are important to any print catalog or digital marketing business. Knowing how often and which KPI to track can make a huge difference to your profit and loss (P&L) statement. You need to separate the “nice to know” from the “need to know” information. Tracking nonessential KPIs might make you feel…

As vaccine distribution moves us closer to a post-pandemic life, businesses are still navigating the economic uncertainty. Retail leaders understand that consumer buying patterns have changed in ways that are likely to persist once the virus is under control. Retailers know they’ll need to adapt to stay a step ahead of competitors and increase profits…

COVID-19 has wrought many changes in society. For retailers, perhaps the most important is the massive shift to online purchases of just about everything. On the one hand, online retailers of all kinds are facing more competition from newcomers which previously concentrated on in-store sales. With more e-commerce sites to compete against — especially, of…

In a rapidly changing retail environment, there's one seemingly obvious constant. A positive experience, whether with a brand, product, service or an employee, forms the foundation of meaningful customer engagement and drives sales. The imperative, therefore, is for companies in all industries to figure out how to create experiences that reflect exactly what their customers…

A crisis forces a change like no other. If retail enterprise debates centered around IT budget in pre-pandemic times, now it’s unequivocally for swift digitalization from customer point of sales (POS) to supply chain. The retail sector has learned some hard lessons from today’s uncertain business climate. However, some enterprises are ahead in their game…

Consumption and shopping behaviors have changed dramatically, leaving retailers with a challenging and dynamic planning process ahead — months after the start of the pandemic. Further complicating things, historical data is losing relevance, and it’s unclear which new behaviors will stick. Retailers must now juggle hundreds of constantly changing variables and answer questions like: With…

Many organizations believe they have an adequate understanding of how they're perceived in the competitive landscape because they have anecdotal evidence from talking to their customers or loosely collected data in-market. Others deprioritize brand awareness efforts because they don’t fully grasp the potential benefits. In reality, operating without understanding how the market truly perceives you across major customer touchpoints is like trying to cross an ocean without navigation tools.