Retailers have spent years accumulating more data, yet many still struggle to turn it into profit. According to Grant Smith, general manager of the fintech SBT division, the problem is not a lack of information but a lack of shared, reliable visibility across retailers and suppliers. In his view, fragmented operational data is quietly fuelling missed sales, weak inventory decisions and a poorer shop-floor experience at a time when inflation and elevated transport costs are already squ...
Continue Reading This Article
Enjoy this article as well as all of our content, including reports, news, tips and more.
By registering or signing into your SRM Today account, you agree to SRM Today's Terms of Use and consent to the processing of your personal information as described in our Privacy Policy.
eezing margins.
That challenge is especially acute in direct store delivery and scan-based trading categories, where sell-through rates, shelf stock and real-time inventory can be delayed, incomplete or unavailable altogether. Smith argues that the traditional instinct to treat data as proprietary has left both sides working from partial pictures, even though retailers hold sales data and suppliers hold delivery data that, when combined, can reveal where products are underperforming, overstocked or failing to reach the shelf.
The commercial consequences are often subtle but significant. Empty shelves lead to lost transactions, abandoned baskets and damaged loyalty, while pricing or promotion errors can undermine trust at the till. TechRadar has noted that fragmented promotion systems are already eroding confidence in retail offers, with disconnected pricing, forecasting, inventory and supplier-funding processes making it harder to deliver consistent value messages to shoppers.
Smith points to examples in which shared operational data has changed outcomes quickly. In one case, an apparel supplier kept sending stock to stores that were not recording sales, only to discover the products were sitting in the back room rather than being displayed. Once the retailer and supplier worked from verified store-level information, merchandising improved and sales followed.
The same logic applies to replenishment. A large flower producer, Smith says, used near-real-time sales signals to anticipate holiday demand and restock stores before displays were cleared, reducing out-of-stocks during peak periods. A propane supplier, meanwhile, uses recent weekend sales data from retail partners to target replenishment before the next busy trading window, a move Smith says has supported annual category sales growth of 10% to 20%.
The broader industry is moving in a similar direction. McKinsey has highlighted the digitalisation of fragmented retail routes to market, while other analysts have argued that unified data platforms are becoming essential not only for customer insight but also for pricing discipline, retail media effectiveness and inventory control. NielsenIQ’s sales measurement tools, for example, are designed to reconcile multiple sources into a deduplicated view of performance across online and offline channels.
The message from Smith’s article is clear: retailers do not need more data so much as better data sharing, validation and standardisation. In an environment where every lost sale matters, turning fragmented signals into a single operational view may be one of the few remaining ways to protect margin without sacrificing customer experience.
Source: Noah Wire Services
