Predictive Analytics for Retail

A Guide to Practical Applications of Predictive Tools for Developing Retail Products

Predictive Analytics are being rapidly adopted by the retail industry as a more efficient and cost effective way to to make better product decisions.

Retail Predictive Analytics Overview

Learn How Retailers, Brands and Manufactures are Leveraging Predictive Analytics to Reduce Costs, Markdowns and Time to Market for their Retail Development Cycles

Predictive Analytics is being rapidly adopted by the retail industry as a more efficient and cost-effective way to make better product decisions.

What is Predictive Analytics?

At this point, we are all familiar with general analytic tools that report everything from sales history to website traffic. These tools organize the data of actions such as sales that have taken place in the past.

First Insight’s Predictive Analytics platform takes these data points, along with user-generated content - the Voice of your Customer - to provide forward-looking metrics yielding accurate demand and sales predictions for products that are still early in the development cycle.

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How Can Predictive Analytics Apply to Retail?

Retail predictive analytics help you create and design better products, but they go far beyond general product recommendations. Here are just some of the additional insights that can be gained with the proper tools:

  • Which design elements and attributes are most valued by your consumers?
  • Which products should be in the assortment, and which should be eliminated?
  • How should products be priced to maximize margins, even without any sales history?
  • How much inventory should retailers/brands buy or manufacture?
  • What messaging will resonate with specific customer segments, retail channels and geographies?

How Do Retail Predictive Analytics Work?

Each tool or platform in the retail predictive analytics industry has its own subset of technologies and methods for retail forecasting. Most tools rely on a combination of predictive algorithms and historical product performance data or feedback from customers. Some platforms go far beyond just previous product performance with complex methodologies of predictive technologies to provide astoundingly insightful outcomes.

We at First Insight pioneered early retail predictive analytics technologies and have the most mature platform that can function as a strong case study for advanced predictive technologies and methodologies. Each predictive retail analytics platform employs different tools, but well-formed products such as our InsightSuite platform combine the following:

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Previous Product Performance Data

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Voice of the Customer

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Machine Learning & AI

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Bayesian Modeling

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Human Computational Modeling

Retail Predictive Analytics Outcomes

Many different outcomes can be derived from predictive analytics tools. Flexible platforms such as our InsightSuite can also be customized to derive the precise outcomes desired by a retailer. Below, we will outline some common outcomes that can be expected when using Predictive Aanalytics tools as a component of your retail product development strategy.

Case Studies

Review some practical applications for retail Predictive Analytics.

Learn More About Our Retail Analytics Solutions

First Insight’s InsightSuite Software Platform utilizes two vital components, The Voice of the Customer and Predictive Analytics, to enable brands, manufacturers, retailers, and licensees to make better product decisions on new products by answering questions that include:

icon-magnifier-analytics Learn How Our Retail Analytics Platform Works Learn More
icon-mobile-money-conversation Explore Our Retail Price Optimization System Learn More
icon-brain-bulb Our Retail AI Helps You Predict Winning Products Learn More