QuantiSense Business Intelligence: Retailers' Secret Ingredient for Increasing Holiday Sales

In the weeks ahead, retailers will be anxiously awaiting sales results for what is widely predicted to be the most challenging holiday season in years. Then, after the final sales are rung and the numbers are in, the planning will start again for next year’s make-or-break season.

Armed with QuantiSense business intelligence software, however, many retailers can make smarter, more informed decisions that can help them not just survive but thrive in a difficult economy — and ultimately ring up more sales, during the holidays and year-round. Built on retail best practices, the QuantiSense BI application includes dashboards for key retail roles including executives, buyers, planners, allocators and others. Users are guided, via QuantiSense Playbooks®, to drill into the details of any retail situation, and are then guided to take specific actions to capitalize on opportunities and solve recurring problems.

QuantiSense is the key to a successful holiday season, allowing retailers to:

Spot the winners early. Betting on the wrong thing — or not betting enough on the right thing — can effectively cripple a retailer’s holiday season. In a period where one day’s sales can be as significant as two weeks any other time of year, the ability to access key performance information on a daily basis is critical. QuantiSense is the first to make it affordable for midsize retailers to track their daily performance by assortment, style, color, size, store and many other levels of detail. Planners can identify the hot sellers early in the season, then accelerate replenishment and order additional production. QuantiSense easily tracks cross-channel sales data, which can be a huge asset, as web sales are often the first indicator of which items will be the best-sellers in the stores, too.

Accurately plan inventory and assortments. Retailers typically base next year’s holiday planning on last year’s data. But without detailed information, retailers can easily make assumptions that spell disaster. One retailer, for example, placed a heavy order of a particular item based on the previous season’s data — without realizing that the merchandise was heavily marked down and sold at a loss.

What retailers really need to understand is which items sold at full price and which cleared out only after promotional sales or markdowns. QuantiSense allows merchandising planners to identify full-price sales vs. markdowns and understand the true profit margins, then order appropriately to maximize full-price sales and minimize markdowns.

Prevent stock-outs. Retailers lose money every time a customer walks out because the right merchandise isn’t in stock. However, the QuantiSense application detects imminent stock-outs by measuring merchandise on hand and sales trends, then alerts retailers to take fast corrective action — speeding up replenishment, allocating merchandise to the stores where it’s selling fastest, ordering more inventory, or finding alternate suppliers.

Conversely, QuantiSense can pinpoint overstocks and prompt retailers to take markdowns, cancel production orders, and do whatever it takes to prevent having excess inventory on hand after December 25.

“QuantiSense helps retailers unlock the power of BI to gain insight and competitive advantage — something that’s critical year-round, but especially during the holiday season,” said Jeff Buck, CEO, QuantiSense. “We look forward to hearing our customers’ success stories again after this year’s holiday sales, and we hope that retailers who are already feeling the strain of this peak season will consider looking at how QuantiSense business intelligence can help make next year’s decisions smarter and more profitable.”

About QuantiSense

QuantiSense is the leading provider of business intelligence and data warehousing applications exclusively for specialty retailers. Customers include Burlington Coat Factory, Casual Male Retail Group, KB Toys, Guitar Center, Hallmark Cards, Pacific Sunwear, Reitmans, Restoration Hardware and Spencer’s. Implemented in 100 days, the QuantiSense application features a best-practices retail data warehouse, and ETL designed to integrate quickly with retail source systems and any database platform. Users conduct analysis using QuantiSense’s packaged analytics, reports, and role-based dashboards tailored for executives, buyers, planners, allocators, and additional roles throughout the retail enterprise. To learn more, visit QuantiSense at www.quantisense.com.