PerformanceRetail Announces New Editions of Retail Intelligence Suite Packaged Solutions for Loss Prevention and Category Manag

Oct. 19, 2004
Web-based merchandising and store operations software provider releases new editions of retail management suite

PerformanceRetail, the leading provider of web-based merchandising and store operations software for the high velocity retail industry, announced today new Loss Prevention and Category Management editions of its InSite Retail Intelligence Suite. By providing visibility into product, cashier and store-level performance through an intuitive web-based interface, the InSite Retail Intelligence Suite helps retailers quickly identify business issues and trends and take proactive steps to improve overall retail performance. PerformanceRetail will demonstrate this new functionality at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) annual conference this week, in Las Vegas, at booth 5839.

Even with today's increased use of scanning and modern point of sale (POS) systems, convenience retailers struggle with interpretation and analysis of product, cashier, store and chain-wide performance information. Traditional reporting tools and back office applications, many of them off-shoots of accounting systems, were never designed to provide retail merchandising and operational managers with consistent visibility into operational data, delivered at the appropriate level of detail, and with the timeliness they need to more effectively compete and grow.

The InSite Retail Intelligence Suite includes packaged editions for Loss Prevention and Category Management that specifically address these issues. The editions include role-specific alerts and graphical dashboards that instantly draw the retailer's attention to the most critical business issues and trends. Also included are packaged transaction reports and retail analytics, which give retailers timely access to operational and trend data so they can more quickly identify business problems and take proactive steps to manage and improve their operations.

While tightly integrated with the InSite merchandising and store operations solution, the Retail Intelligence Suite is specifically designed to provide enhanced item-level visibility, merchandising analytics and loss prevention metrics for customer-installed third party back office and price book systems. Additionally, the Suite supports integration with popular convenience retail POS systems and is built to support interface standards defined by the Petroleum Convenience Alliance for Technology Standards (PCATS) as they evolve.

"This release of the InSite Retail Intelligence Suite builds on our unwavering commitment to deliver increased visibility and control to convenience retailers whose efforts have been hampered by traditional software and consulting approaches," said Marc Hafner, president and CEO of PerformanceRetail. "By delivering an unprecedented level of retail business intelligence through our low-risk, on-demand business model, we're enabling our customers to realize tremendous cost savings and embrace technology to improve overall efficiency and profitability."

InSite Loss Prevention Edition

The InSite Loss Prevention Edition is designed to highlight POS issues that negatively impact retail margins, with a particular focus on cashier behavior that correlates with fraudulent behavior. According to NACS and the National Convenience Store Research Group, these issues cost convenience retailers almost $5 billion in 2003. The InSite Loss Prevention Edition provides real-time visibility into the key metrics of shrink and enables proactive resolution of potential losses through:

-- Chain, district, store and cashier loss prevention Scorecards which highlight and correlate loss indicators across the entire organization

-- Instant alerts, which provide notification of exceptions at the cashier, store or district level on key loss prevention indicators such as price overrides, voids, errors, no sales, coupons, cash over/short and scan rate

-- Shift analysis and loss prevention-specific transaction and cashier reports, with drill-down capability to enable quick issue resolution

-- POS Patrol, which can continually monitor POS activities and securely transmit transaction-level data to the retailer for issue analysis and resolution

InSite Category Management Edition

The InSite Category Management Edition enables retailers to gain better visibility into product and store performance, increase market basket size and profitability and improve promotional effectiveness through instant alerts, category management dashboards, packaged reports and retail analytics. Features include:

-- Category Performance Dashboards, providing an at-a-glance graphical representation of key category performance indicators

-- Market Basket Analysis, enabling retailers to track product-to- product affinities, product cannibalization trends and product sales before/after price changes and promotions

-- Instant alerts, which provide notification of key category performance indicators such as potential stock-outs of promoted items, vendor delivery problems or notification of unexpected cost changes

-- Packaged Category Management reports, which detail category and item sales and margin trends by store, between stores and across the entire chain, with drill-down capability for increasing levels of detail

As with the entire InSite solution, the InSite Retail Intelligence Suite is provided on-demand, as a hosted service from PerformanceRetail. InSite runs in the retailer's existing environment over a secure web browser, eliminating the need for the retailer to purchase additional hardware, software licenses or connectivity upgrades. The Suite is priced on a modular, monthly subscription model, further reducing upfront fees and ongoing maintenance costs and reducing risk.