NRF 2018 Retail’s Big Show: Takeaways from Day One
Fung Global Retail & Technology
KEY POINTS
The FGRT team is attending NRF 2018 Retail’s Big Show in New York City this week. With more than 35,000 attendees from 95 countries, including 18,000 retailers and more than 600 exhibitors, the trade show is one of the biggest in the retail industry. Below are our key takeaways from the first day of the event.
Intel demonstrated several solutions—not products—for retail, all of which are based on data.
Factoring weather data into decisions can help companies forecast more accurately, reduce inventory, increase efficiency and raise net income, according to Planalytics and JDA.
Walmart still views retailing as a people business and the company continues to feel the presence of its late founder, Sam Walton.
Instagram is increasingly becoming a platform through which businesses can connect with consumers.
In e-commerce, international retailers are gaining advantages in terms of customer experience rather than price. . . .
2) Factoring weather data into decisions can help companies forecast more accurately, reduce inventory, increase efficiency and raise net income, according to Planalytics and JDA.
Planalytics and JDA gave a joint presentation titled “Show Me the Weather” that highlighted the benefits of incorporating weather data into retail forecasting and planning. The inclusion of Planalytics weather analytics on JDA’s demand-planning platform occasioned the joint presentation. An executive from JDA outlined the challenge of predicting consumer demand and discussed the benefits of analyzing social, news, events and weather big data.
Evan Gold, EVP of Global Services at Planalytics, distinguished between weather data and weather analytics, which can be used to determine weather-driven demand. Gold said that retailers must first deweatherize retail sales data, i.e., adjust the data to remove weather-related-demand factors, since weather repeats only 15% of the time. This adjustment leaves retailers with a weather-neutral baseline. Then, retailers must add back in forecast upcoming weather impacts. Planalytics claims that this process results in an accuracy improvement of 82% in subclasses, as well as an increase of two to five percentage points in net income, which is highly significant for retailers. Using weather data can help retailers improve forecast accuracy, reduce stock and inventory carrying costs, and ensure consistency and scalability, Gold said. It also provides other benefits in terms of marketing, labor planning and replenishment. . . .
