Today's businesses face an unprecedented onslaught of supply chain disruptions, inventory inconsistencies, and economic uncertainty. To survive this era of near constant indecision, companies must be able to quickly adapt and pivot to avoid being in the red. This may mean price increases, but how will consumers react? It's not uncommon to worry that customers will go elsewhere, but it doesn’t have to be that way if planned and executed properly. How to Implement Price Increases Successfully 1. Know Your Customers While it may seem like a no-brainer, to craft the best experiences, you must know ..read more

Footwear is not for the faint of heart. It’s one of the toughest segments in the retail industry. New product introduction cycles are long, development costs are high, and manufacturing is complicated. In the end, only one in five styles is successful in the market. Euromonitor predicted that footwear sales will outpace apparel sales until at least 2020, and thus millions of dollars in sales are still up for grabs for those smart retailers and brands that can produce one or two winning styles. But what is the secret sauce that can make or break a successful footwear brand?  According to A ..read more

Learning how to maneuver through tough economic times will likely be a new lesson for many CEOs. Inflation hitting 40+ year highs means that many of today’s business leaders were still in elementary school when the US last experienced rampant inflation. However, there is always a silver lining, even in the face of record-breaking doom and gloom. The very best companies and leaders know that challenging economic times can yield tremendous future returns. When the going gets tough…the tough figure out how to take market share from their competitors. As Warren Buffet has famously said, “only when ..read more

The supply chain is in disrepair around the world, and it does not seem to be improving any time soon. With chaotic problems such as inflation, COVID, and Russia’s war on Ukraine, the supply chain is being vastly disrupted. Companies globally are facing the supply chain crisis daily. With factors such as the lack of resources, limited availability at manufacturers, and transportation issues, many businesses are at a crossroads in how to move forward. The new reality is that companies need to reposition themselves strategically to move in a direction of maintaining profitability. Businesses nee ..read more

Sustainability and looming water shortages are consistently in the news. Surprisingly, the garment dyeing process appears to be staying out of the limelight. On a global scale, the textile industry uses six to nine trillion liters [1] of water per year solely for the dyeing of clothing. This is an enormous amount of waste that should be addressed with greater urgency. As a world leader in predictive analytics, First Insight has identified three areas in which our solutions can help make the retail industry more sustainable when dyeing clothing. 1. Early Digital Testing to Optimize Inventory an ..read more

The ecommerce market was growing pre-pandemic but Digital Commerce 360 estimates that the pandemic pushed even more U.S. consumers online, contributing an additional $105 billion in U.S. online revenue in 2020 and accelerating ecommerce by two years. Online retailing has continued to increase and see big benefits due to COVID-19. According to the Commerce Department, online sales hit $792 billion in 2020, up 32.4 percent from $598 billion in the prior year.   While traditional retailers and brands have been strategizing and upgrading to gain more online sales, back in the shipping and log ..read more

By now, we all know that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of every business profoundly and irrevocably. We very well may return to many pre-pandemic ways of working now that many of us are vaccinated and life is returning somewhat to normal. However, many former ways of working come across today as wildly inefficient and, for good reason, may never return. At First Insight, our bet is that the old ways retailers used to visit showrooms and do line reviews will be some of the ones that go away. Merchants traveling the world to visit far-flung showrooms will be a ..read more

Digital Line Reviews Powered by Predictive Analytics With increased remote work due to COVID-19, the importance of digitalization has been accelerated and magnified. Most line or product review sessions that were previously held with physical product and teams together in the same room are now conducted as video meetings. The First Insight platform provides a unique solution for remote reviews, now seamlessly presenting a logical template and dashboards that support productive and accurate reviews, even when teams can’t be together.   Make Product Decisions with Voice of Customer Ana ..read more

The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry in North America is the largest in the world, valued at approximately $2 trillion. Dominated by giant legacy brands including Coca-Cola, P&G, Unilever, and L’Oreal, the CPG industry is not only large, but also in charge of the U.S. economy. According to the Consumer Brand Association, the CPG industry provides 20.4 million jobs—approximately 1 in 10 jobs in America. It also accounts for roughly 10% of United States GDP at $361.3 billion. Vital to the economy and everyday life, the CPG industry appears steady and stable on the surface. However, muc ..read more

In the 1950’s a young British man named Alan Turing introduced and explored the possibility of artificial intelligence—the concept that machines could access available information and apply reasoning to solve complex problems. While the development of AI moved slowly at first based on the limitations of current technology, when computers became powerful enough to store data and not only execute commands, AI and Machine Learning took off—especially in the retail industry. The number one problem retailers and brands need AI to solve is clear: there are not enough winning products and too many m ..read more