Summary

• The dynamic nature of the retail market demands swift, informed decisions from merchandisers.
• Integrated data, combining market insights with internal metrics, is crucial for effective decision-making.
• Manual data analysis often provides incomplete insights, leading to less informed decisions.
• An AI-driven merchandising platform offers a comprehensive view of both internal and market data, streamlining decision-making processes.
• Woolworths experienced a transformative impact by using an integrated merchandising experience platform, emphasizing its real-world benefits.

Staying Ahead in the Ever-Changing Retail Landscape

As a merchandiser, you understand that the market does not wait for anyone. Market trends shift, consumer preferences change, and competitors evolve. If you are not one step ahead, you are already behind in the world of retail. In such a landscape, time is of the essence, and decisions must be made swiftly. In order to make the decisions that are critical to your role as a merchandiser, the challenge lies in accessing comprehensive, integrated data quickly. This is where the power of an integrated merchandising experience platform comes into play.

Stop Making Macro Decisions With Micro Data: The Need for Integrated Data

While access to data is crucial, for merchandisers, the most important factor is how you serve data within your organization. Your job is not to be a data analyst. Even if it were, with the insurmountable amount of data available, you would only be able to get through a sliver, meaning you would not see the full picture. 

Combining market insights with internal data in one comprehensive view provides the necessary context for effective decision-making that merchandisers need. Market data is an essential piece of the puzzle as it contextualizes what is happening with your performance. Seeing your internal metrics next to market insights in one view allows you to benchmark your performance and uncover opportunities to maximize profit because you understand the “why” behind what is happening in your business. 

Without the integration and accessibility of both internal and market data through a merchandising tool, merchandisers find themselves wading through a sea of disparate data sources, consuming hours that would be better spent on strategic planning.

Understanding the “What,” the “Why,” and the “What Next”

When you manually analyze data in your organization, you’re only scraping the surface to draw the insights you need. Because you are human, and not an AI-powered analytics tool, you physically cannot use all the data available. For that reason, you are making decisions with only half (if that) of the information.

Don’t miss making data-informed decisions just because you struggle to fit analysis into your day. Without data-driven insights from a merchandising experience tool, you spend too much time trying to find the data to answer “what” is happening, leaving you no time to understand the “why” and influence the “what next.” The “why” is crucial to actionable intelligence, helping you take the right action for your business.

AI-Driven Merchandising Experience Platforms

The significance of merging market insights with internal data in a merchandising experience platform goes beyond convenience. It’s about unlocking the “what” and the “why” behind the numbers. The challenges of formulating the right questions, locating relevant data, and fusing internal and market data fade away with this retail analytics software. 

An AI-driven merchandising experience platform not only shows you all the internal and market data you need in one view, but also allows you to focus on the key actions you need to take to make the biggest difference to your performance. With pre-configured dashboards, you can select the most relevant questions that you need answered rather than combing data sources, or even having to come up with the questions to ask of the data yourself.

Real-World Impact: Woolworths’ Success With an Integrated Merchandising Platform

Lilize Diener, Senior Buyer at Woolworths, attests to the transformative impact of an integrated merchandising experience platform: 

“Prior to EDITED, a comp shop would have taken our buyers at least half a day to conduct. Using EDITED’s dashboards though, we’ve been able to cut down on the amount of time needed to conduct a comp shop by 50%. EDITED really identifies the gaps in our assortment. It has an overall view of the market, so we’re able to look at the full picture of what’s happening. If we did the same process manually, we’d miss things only going retailer by retailer.”  

By utilizing this type of software, rather than manually conducting data analysis, teams at Woolworths can find the answers they need in a more efficient way. This process means merchandisers have more time to take action from these insights and make smart, data-informed decisions that positively impact their business. 

Conclusion: Introducing myEDITED

The introduction of myEDITED within the EDITED Merchandising Experience Platform consolidates diverse insights into a single, easily accessible interface. You no longer have to jump between various sources of separate internal and external data for the information you seek. myEDITED empowers you to be a merchandiser, not a data analyst, and focus on the critical actions that drive performance and save time.

Struggling to derive actionable insights due to the complexity of analysis is a thing of the past. With pre-configured dashboards designed for common merchandising tasks, the barriers to informed decision-making disappear.

In a rapidly evolving market, the ability to swiftly and effectively make data-informed decisions with a contextualized view of your business can make all the difference. myEDITED stands as a testament to the power of an integrated merchandising experience platform, reshaping the way merchandisers approach their craft. Learn how you can embrace a new era of decision-making with myEDITED here.