Retail analytics insights
Guides, frameworks, and strategies for retail teams that want to move from dashboards to decisions.
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Blue Yonder, RELEX, Oracle: A Mid-Market Guide to Demand Planning Alternatives
Enterprise demand planning suites assume a planning organization, a multi-quarter rollout, and a six-figure budget. For mid-market retail, here are the real demand planning alternatives and how to evaluate them.
Automated Shelf Audits: Store-Level Data Without Field Reps
Field reps cost $40 a visit for 12 looks a year. See what automated shelf audits cost per store-day, what they actually detect, and how to run one in 30 days.
Grocery Shrink Software: Finding the 1.5% You're Losing
Grocery runs 1-3% net margins and shrink near 1.5% of sales, so shrink is often bigger than profit. A guide to grocery shrink software: the four loss buckets, why annual counts are too late, and what to look for.
Convenience Store Demand Forecasting and Dayparting
A daily forecast hides that you're out of breakfast items by 9am and overstocked by 8pm. Why c-store demand forecasting has to run at the daypart level, and how to balance foodservice waste against peak-hour stockouts.
Pharmacy Demand Forecasting: Cut Carrying Cost Without Stockouts
Pharmacy forecasting balances two costs: expired product written off and lost scripts when a maintenance med is out. Why min-max reordering fails, and how demand-weighted, expiry-aware forecasting frees working capital.
What "LLM-Agnostic" Actually Means for Retail AI
An LLM-agnostic system isn't hard-wired to one model provider. Model quality and pricing shift every quarter, so avoiding lock-in lets you take the upgrade without a migration. What it means and what to ask a vendor.
Fill Rate Math: Why 95% Costs You More Than You Think
Unit, line, and case fill are three different numbers. Get the formulas, benchmarks by vertical, and why 95% fill rate costs a $400M chain $6M a year.
GMROI by Category: The $3-Return SKUs Hiding in Your Mix
GMROI is margin dollars over inventory at cost. Get benchmarks by vertical, the margin-versus-turns quadrants, and why chain-level $2.40 hides $0.80 categories.
Sell-Through Curves: The Weekly Signal That Tells You When to Markdown
Week 1-3 sell-through predicts terminal ST with 75-85% accuracy. Get the formula, benchmarks by category, and the four-tier framework for acting on the curve.
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