First, a quick refresher on QR (quick response) codes and the creative and unique ways they are being used. These have been around since the mid-90s, but just started to gain mainstream use in the past few years as smart phones have grown in popularity. QR codes are used when you download a QR reader app on your smart phone. Open the app and to grab the QR image that will take you to a destination like Facebook, a video, a sign up page or something of interest. Here are some of the many ways they have been used in the retail and non-retail environments:

• - The Home Depot has started to use them in their weekly circulars - link
• - Best Buy uses them in store to give more information about products – link
• - Companies use them on their products to help build customer fan bases on Facebook – link
• - Realtors use them to get info to potential home buyers – link
• - They are also being used on grave markers – link

There are even more possibilities out there. But what does QR codes have to do with eSENSE Retail and retail data analytics. We at eSENSE now have QR data analytics as part of its suite of solutions. We can GENERATE unique QR codes that can be READ by any smart phone and then we can ANALYZE the QR code data.

We recently did this with a company that did a promo for The Home Depot. They added QR codes to their quarter pallet display and to their product labels. By doing this they were able to tell customers more about their product, which will most likely lead to future sales. They were also able to analyze customer habits by learning that more codes were scanned from the in-store floor display than the product label.

Here at eSENSE we always say that retail is detail and with the addition of QR code analytics companies can now gain an additional level of insight about its products, customers and sales.

Thanks for reading,
eSENSE Retail team

Don’t forget to download our QR Code Reader app that is available for free in the iTunes App Store.

Retail data analysis is done to analyze various processes of business, develop coordination between actual and targeted sales, increase revenue and reduce overall business costs. The process of eSENSE Retail begins with collection of data from major EDI capable retailers either on behalf on their clients or in conjunction with members of client’s company. In order to facilitate comparative data analysis, they gather data of multiple consecutive years so that retailers can easily compare sales figures of different years. The collected data is processed into a useful format with the help of warehouse data analysis. Their laser focused customized dashboards provide a multitude of all key performance indicators such as current and previous sales, turnover rate, ROI retail inventory, gross margin, and various others.

Retail data analysis solution provides a clear understanding of sales, inventory, and market trend patterns. These are aimed at enhancing employee productivity and operational efficiency. It is highly effective in drilling down costs of various operations such as Sales, Marketing, IT, Operations, Finance and others. eSENSE Retail Solution provides retailers and manufacturers an easy and simple means to analyze POS data. Their retail solution is an online service and requires no software for installation. Their team of experts provides initial and on-going training based on client and user needs. They also provide expert assistance in retail consulting, business development and EDI services and support. For the purpose of formatting, storing and displaying data, eSENSE Retail utilizes standard Microsoft collaboration technologies. Please feel free to contact them for any queries. For further information and to avail benefits of their services, please browse through www.esenseretail.com.

Retail is the most attractive segment of industry and every retailer has to face many challenges in this globalized world. A retailer needs to manage his products, channels of distribution, clients, and suppliers as well. An ideal retail dashboard should monitor the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) over a period of time. KPIs are quantifiable performance measurements which indicate progress towards the achievement of business objectives. KPIs differ from organization to organization and even within an organization of different departments like finance, personnel, marketing and administration.  The eSENSE Retail solution offers retail data solutions to small and large business firms. It is a web based application which assimilates the retail data points into customized retail dashboards.

By monitoring key performance indicators, retail dashboards help the business owners and managers to take immediate and accurate decisions. A dashboard combines all the data in one single source and the business owners can clearly evaluate that one part of business is impacting other or not and to what extent. The easy-to-use dashboards can be easily customized according to the specific needs of a retailer such as highlighting of determining factors, drilling down of data to its source and others. Drilling down of data depends upon the gauges available in the dashboard and manufacturers can drill down the data to the level of source to make the best decisions at the retailer. Typically, a dashboard includes data such as sales and profits of company, sales on a specified date and over a period of time, comparison of sales and profit performance at store level, graphs sales trends and other data at a retailer.

Their dashboards are technology-driven and are fully interactive enabling manufacturers and retailers to make the right decisions. Retailers need not to perform complicated Excel formulas and spreadsheets. All the data is provided to them in simple terms which helps in spotting emerging trends quickly. eSENSE Retail has been offering its expert services to the retailers from many years. Check out the complete details about working of retail dashboards and how they can help business owners in driving ROI, by browsing through www.esenseretail.com