RetailNext and University of Chicago Business School Partner to More Deeply Examine Shopping Behavior in Retail Stores

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- RetailNext, the leader in comprehensive in-store analytics, and faculty from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, today announced that they have teamed to more deeply examine shopping and purchasing behavior in retail stores. By examining the full path to purchase in a more granular fashion, the organizations expect to provide a deeper understanding of retail decision drivers.

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"The RetailNext platform offers unique visibility into the details of actual behavior in real-world retail environments by incorporating critical data sources like video, which weren't available with previous technologies. The company's ability to collect, measure and analyze in-store shopper behavior for more than 50 retail chains should yield valuable data that our research team, retail sector and economists can learn from," said Jean-Pierre Dube, Sigmund E. Edelstone Professor of Marketing and Robert King Steel Faculty Fellow at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. 

"We're excited to have this opportunity to explore a new view of retail and see what lessons can be learned," added Gunter Hitsch, Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

"More than 95% of the U.S. retail sales total in 2011 was conducted in physical stores, indicating that brick-and-mortar remains the channel of choice for consumers.  Big Data technology platforms and analytics have advanced to the point where retailers can finally learn as much, if not more, about shopper behavior, than they can online," stated Alexei Agratchev, co-founder and CEO, RetailNext. "With this partnership, the Booth School faculty can use its deep marketing and business knowledge to answer critical questions about the sources of retail success.  In the long term, this information-sharing initiative should offer up new insights that will be to the benefit of retailers everywhere."

For years, RetailNext has provided managers at major retail chains with the ability to better understand shopper behavior and make pragmatic decisions to improve store performance.  Merchants have routinely increased sales, cut costs, improved employee productivity, reduced theft, and enhanced their customer experience using RetailNext.  This first-ever exposure of RetailNext's measured data to professional academic researchers represents the next step in retailing knowledge.

About University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Since 1898 the University of Chicago Booth School of Business has produced ideas and leaders that shape the world of business.  Its rigorous, discipline-based approach has transformed students into confident, effective, respected business leaders.  As part of the world-renowned University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business boasts degree and open enrollment programs on three continents, a global body of nearly 45,000 alumni, six faculty members who have received the Nobel Prize (the first-ever business school to achieve that honor), and strong growing corporate relationships.

About RetailNext
RetailNext is the leader in real-time in-store analytics, enabling retailers and manufacturers to monitor, collect, analyze, and visualize in-store data. The company uses best-in-class video analytics, on-shelf sensors, data from point-of-sale systems, and other sources, to automatically inform retailers about how people engage in their stores. The highly scalable RetailNext products easily integrate with promotional calendars, staffing systems and even weather services to analyze how internal and external factors impact customer shopping patterns – providing store operations executives with the ability to identify opportunities for growth, execute changes and measure success.

Headquartered in San Jose, CA, RetailNext tracks more than 25 million shoppers per month by collecting data from more than 15,000 sensors in retail stores, capturing and analyzing trillions of data points per year.  RetailNext is a growing global brand currently operating in 18 countries. For more information, call +1-888-609-5877.

SOURCE RetailNext