Resources

JC Penney reported a loss of $348 million for its first quarter, compared to $163 million comp last year amid a 16% decline in revenue.  The retailer is struggeling to recover from the business plans former CEO Ron Johnson had put in place. JCP’s new CEO Mike Ullman said that reconnecting with customer will take... Read more »

The Accelerated Analytics team spent the week in Las Vegas at the National Hardware Show meeting with customers and prospective customers.  Most of the attendees we spoke with feel the economy is comming back and the remainder of 2013 will be pretty solid.  That view seems to be supported by the performance of the major... Read more »

I was shoping at Kohl’s this morning and was somewhat surprised to see they are using digital price signs on all thier fixtures and racks.  I haven’t been into a Kohl’s for at least a year so I’m not sure if these are new or have been around a while.  Although the geek in me... Read more »

Office Depot and OfficeMax officially ended industry speculation today confirming they will merge into a single company.  OfficeMax shareholdersw will receive 2.69 Office Depot common shares for each share of OfficeMax common stock. “In the past decade, with the growth of the internet, our industry has changed dramatically. Combining our two companies will enhance our... Read more »

CAMBRIDGE, MA – All signs point to a strong rebound for home improvement activity in 2013, according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) released today by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.  Robust spending in the second half of 2012 suggests the remodeling recovery is already underway, and the... Read more »

The objective of sharing POS data with vendors should be to make it as easy to access as possible and above all convenient.  To our dismay a significant retailer in the home improvement space charges vendors a significant sum of money to purchase a secure ID and then has the following availability “Normal hours of... Read more »

After your company has EDI 852 reporting setup and you are able to analyze sales efficiently there are five additional source data files that can be added to your reporting to enhance your ability to understand sales.  Let’s spend a few minutes talking about each file. Plan-o-gram assignment.  A plan-o-gram (POG) file identifies the SKU... Read more »

We spent some time reviewing Christmas comps and here are some data points and observations.   Sample Group 38 vendors in the sample selling various product departments including paint, tools, cleaning, lawn and garden, storage, electrical, and lumber.  Sales numbers for Home Depot, Sears, Wal-Mart, Lowes, Target, CVS. Results All vendors as a group were... Read more »

The availability of retail point of sale data over the past several years has created the opportunity for vendors to gain a detailed understanding of consumer demand at the retail point of sale.  Actual consumer demand at the retail point of sale presents a more accurate and timely picture of how your SKU’s are selling... Read more »