And in a world where omnichannel is becoming a business imperative, being able to bridge the gap between online, D-to-C and department store sales data becomes a valuable tool in seeing what's working and what's falling flat. Once analyzed, this data can provide business intelligence to merchandisers such as product affinity and which items are frequently bought together, which can inform bundling and product recommendations at checkout overall trends by product and insight into which products are being returned, exchanged or refunded. POS data includes a wide variety of information related to unit sales, dollar sales, colors, styles and sizes that can give insight into velocity and profitability. However, there's little value in collecting data if it’s not used to better understand trends and insights and drive business decisions. Smart wholesalers that are able to synthesize and analyze POS data can make the difference between just reporting basic sales and using that data to react to current opportunities and plan for the future. Collecting POS data is a crucial part of a merchandiser's job, but one that can take days to capture, normalize and make sense of. The beauty of POS data is that every wholesale brand has it. With deep cuts in executive staffing, retailers will be relying on the merchandising expertise of their wholesale partners more than ever before.
The problem retailers face is fewer merchants to analyze the business. For many retailers, the answer lies in something they already have on hand - their own point-of-sale (POS) data, which can provide crucial insight into not only how sales are performing on a weekly basis, but can pinpoint future trends and benchmarks and help with merchandising and pricing. In the current environment, retailers will need to find ways to do more with less - be it less employees, less time or less money. Even before the devastating impact of a shutdown economy due to COVID-19, the whispers of an "apocalypse" were rampant with many retailers, and wholesalers in particular, feeling the effects of, direct-to-consumer (D-to-C) growth, and the shrinking mall on their bottom line. It’s been a tough year for the retail industry.