The retail landscape has experienced a transformation unmatched in recent history. Since the start of the pandemic, brick and mortar (B&M) retailers have been forced to adjust to customer behaviour shifts, changes they thought would occur over a decade, not a year. As we begin to recover from the grips of the pandemic, B&M retailers will need to measure customer behaviour to build strategies, make investments, and compete in the new-normal marketplace. Fusion can help! The largest and most obvious shift in customer behaviour has been the rapid move to online. Pre-pandemic transac ..read more

The post 4 Ways Marketing Executives Should Think With Data appeared first on Fusion Analytics ..read more

The post 3 Ways Marketing Executives Should Think With Data appeared first on Fusion Analytics ..read more

How a new structure is required to improve strategic planning. In the Old Testament, God created distinct languages so that the people of the Earth could not talk to each other and build a tower to heaven. The biblical Tower of Babel was never completed because of it. Today’s retail executives have the opposite problem: every department in their company has its own metrics, its own way of thinking and its own “language”. This makes it difficult for CEOs to make key strategic decisions that will transform retail growth. Retail executives need to embark on a mission to build their own Tower of ..read more

Moving from store centric to consumer centric analytics. Real estate is in flux in Canada. Target is opening 120+ stores in Canada, major competitors like Walmart continue to aggressively expand their store count, e-commerce and cross-border shopping have hit new levels and Canada continues to urbanize and become more ethnic. The changing environment is producing challenges but also opportunities for smart, fast-moving retailers. Most successful retailers have always been about understanding the consumer, with street smarts on how consumers shop and the implications for store counts, locations ..read more

In March, Canadians begin to emerge from their winter slumber and to focus their attention on the outside of their houses, getting gardens and the patios ready for summer. Omni-channel sales in the patio and garden categories to the end of March grew by nearly 70%*. In effect, if a retailer’s sales grew by less than that they will have lost market share.  The year over year sales increase in March was driven by three key factors: Although unemployment has grown it has been more than made up for by increased wages and a lower cost of living in March this year thus giving Canadians more ..read more

A key step to better analytics is move more of your reports/metrics to a common language so different opportunities are cross-comparable. A quick way to get started is to use a common denominator in your monthly category reports. For example, here is what a typical monthly report looks like for a retailer: Growth Rate Furniture 20% Mattresses 4% Appliances 3% Total 4.4% This report tells retail executives that the furniture merchant is doing a great job. In fact, her category is the only one performing above the company’s total growth rate. While this may be true, there are typi ..read more

Moving from more noise to finding the opportunity A few years ago I met a retail analyst who told me “I feel like Ali Sard from that Dr. Seuss story.” I had to head home and dig through my son’s collection of Dr. Seuss books before I understood the analogy. Ali Sard is a character from the book “Did I ever tell you how lucky you are” . The book is about horrible jobs, and Ali’s is to mow his uncle’s yard. The problem is that the yard is so huge that by the time Ali is done, the grass has grown so much that he needs start over, right away. As the story goes, “the faster he mows, the faster it ..read more

The considerable growth in fitness pursuits like running, cycling, in-home weight training and online fitness classes continued into April.  Linked to this boom, Omni-channel sales in the sports and fitness equipment and accessories categories grew by nearly 36%* to the end of April. In effect, if retailer’s sales grew, but by less than 36%, they actually lost customers and market share to competitors.  The year over year sales increase in April* was driven by four key factors: Although unemployment benefits such as EI and CERB declined for many in April it was more than made up f ..read more

Canadian retailers have been raising their prices on groceries since early 2019. Will you adapt your pricing strategies based on macroeconomic trends before others do?Canadian retailers have been raising their prices on groceries since early 2019. Will you adapt your pricing strategies based on macroeconomic trends before others do? Price inflation of grocery items has been accelerating since the beginning of 2019 at a speed not seen since 2016. Traditionally, price increases have been associated with many factors such as rising costs of products and a lack of competition between retailers. Ma ..read more