Big Data

Clean-up from Hurricane Irene's destruction is keeping retailers like Home Depot and Lowe's busy, but back-to-school apparel sales are likely to suffer.

Detailed, granular customer data should inform merchandising decisions across all channels. Download this Retail Solutions Brief to learn how new data sources can be accessed, analyzed and integrated to build product assortments that will engage shoppers in more meaningful ways.

Despite severe winter weather, many retailers saw strong same-store sales in January—including Limited Brands, owner of Victoria's Secret, which achieved a spectacular 24% increase. The overall strong retail performance indicates the economic recovery is gaining traction, but projected fuel cost increases will cut into consumers' spending power.

Early reports on holiday sales indicate the merriest holiday season for retail since 2007 with about $584.3 billion in sales, a 5.5% increase over last year. Online sales showed particularly strong growth, climbing 15.4% to a projected $36.4 billion. Retailers are hoping a post-holiday blizzard on the East Coast and still-high unemployment across the country won't curdle the eggnog at their holiday parties.

Rite Aid adds Business Weather Intelligence from Planalytics to analyze, quantify and manage the weather€„¢s impact on store traffic and demand for select product categories.

Ace Hardware selects the Planalytics Business Weather Intelligence platform to measure and predict weather-driven demand.

Weather trend predictions boost sales at Clarks UK