RetailNext Announces Enterprise APIs & Expanded Partner Ecosystem

NEW YORK, Jan. 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- RetailNext, Inc., the in-store analytics market leader, announced today the release of a set of enterprise application programming interfaces (APIs) for application integration by retailers, shopping centers, and business partners, including business intelligence tools, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, marketing automation systems, and other service providers. RetailNext also announced that its hardware-agnostic solutions are now available for third-party computing hardware, enabling retailers worldwide to leverage existing hardware investments. In conjunction with these developments, RetailNext announces integration of its platform with industry partners, including Motorola, Silverpop, Clutch, and many others.

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RetailNext made the announcement from Booth #1665 at the 2014 NRF Big Show in New York City.

RetailNext brings e-commerce-style measurements and analytics to physical stores and shopping centers through the most comprehensive in-store analytics platform for retailers. Expanding the platform's ecosystem, RetailNext has released two distinct enterprise APIs: Personalization API and Metrics API. These increase the range of solutions available to retailers through integration with independent software and third-party application providers who are eager to offer enhanced products and services to their retail customers.

RetailNext Personalization API

RetailNext's Personalization API enables retailers to engage with their most valuable shoppers. The platform provides marketers with visibility into the time a shopper passes by or enters the store and before arriving to the point of sale, for critical insight about the shopping lifecycle. Marketers can use RetailNext data to gain deep insights, measure and optimize marketing campaigns, better understand shopper behaviors, identify and engage shoppers when they enter the store, and understand the impact of showrooming. The API generates real time events based on in-store behavior, including entry and exit to the store, departments visited, and time spent in each, enabling 1-to-1 personalization and engagement with shoppers.

RetailNext's Personalization API is designed to work with CRM tools, marketing automation tools, loyalty programs, and more. Digital marketing technology companies such as Silverpop and Clutch are already working with RetailNext to bring end-to-end solutions for retailers.

"RetailNext's Personalization API, together with Silverpop's marketing automation tools, enable retailers to provide a 360-degree view of the customer across channels and address them with personalized content," said Will Schnabel, Senior Vice President of Business Development, Silverpop. "Together, Silverpop and RetailNext ensure personalized offers and communications can be sent to shoppers in real time based on their behavior and in-store location."   

"Clutch's Customer Lifecycle Success (CLS) Platform is integrated with the RetailNext platform to deliver a seamless and personalized in-store experience. The combined solution gives retailers access to unified real-time and historic data from across their entire brand ecosystem; in-store, on-line, mobile, and social channels, creating relevant and contextually sensitive engagements while consumers are actively browsing in-store. This real-time, hyper-relevant, personalized communication takes loyalty and engagement programs to the next level, blurring the line between in-store, on-line and social experiences," said Ned Moore, CEO of Clutch. 

"As a result, we can produce data elements such as spending, shopping comparison, demographic, and mobile and social graph information in real time to create an extremely rich and personal experience for in-store shoppers as never before," added Moore.

RetailNext Metrics API

The new Metrics API from RetailNext provides retailers with the most comprehensive and integrated analytics for on-line, mobile, and physical stores, enabling omnichannel analytics and measurement of in-store customer behavior at the same level of detail as e-commerce type analytics. Through the RetailNext Metrics API, retailers gain a side-by-side comparison of each channel's metrics in order to develop effective cross-channel strategies and programs.

The Metrics API enables retailers to access summarized data across multiple dimensions for custom analytics or data warehousing. Some of the available metrics include traffic and exposure, engagement, conversion, sales, shopper-base demographics (age, gender, new vs. return visits, visit frequency, geographical location, and cross-store spending), queue analytics, staffing, and much more.

Hardware Independence

RetailNext announced the release of hardware-agnostic products for retailers worldwide. The company's full analytics software easily integrates with a number of third-party hardware platforms. Among the platforms supported, RetailNext highlighted support for Motorola Solutions' NX Unified Access Platform and Cisco UCS-E Series platform. Integrations with leading providers in the industry enable retailers to leverage existing IT and hardware investments for maximum flexibility, control, ease of deployment, and cost savings.  

"RetailNext and Motorola Solutions have a long-standing alliance in platform integration," said Sanjoy Dey, Director of Product Management, Motorola Solutions. "We are excited to extend this collaboration to the underlying server requirements with our NX Unified Access Platforms. The NX 6500 manages Wireless LAN and other branch services from a single interface and enhances the shopping experience by enabling retail analytics to better serve customers, allowing retailers to compete effectively against e-tailers."

Extended Sensor Support

As part of the expansion of its partner ecosystem, RetailNext has increased the number of sensors that its platform supports. This has furthered the platform's ability to collect valuable, actionable data from a number of different sensors, including video, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.

Today, the RetailNext platform works with:

• More than 500 video camera models, including both analog and IP for video-analytics-based products.
• Major Wi-Fi hardware providers, including Motorola Solutions, Aruba Networks, Cisco, and Meraki (for its Wi-Fi-based analytics products).
• The Gimbal™ context-aware and proximity platform from Qualcomm Retail Solutions, which enables delivery of personalized, highly relevant communications to consumers on their mobile devices based on interests and context.
• iInside (formerly WirelessWERX) – The Retail Location Analytics is based on 1-meter accuracy and utilizes Bluetooth, BLE and/or Wi-Fi technology, including Wi-Fi data from major Wi-Fi providers such as Aruba. ilnside offers a number of solutions for retail business intelligence, queue management, and location-aware mobile loyalty applications.

About RetailNext

RetailNext is the leader in Applied Big Data for brick-and-mortar retail, delivering real-time analytics that enables retailers, shopping centers, and manufacturers to collect, analyze, and visualize in-store data. The company's patented solution uses best-in-class video analytics, Wi-Fi detection, Bluetooth, data from point-of-sale systems, and other sources to automatically inform retailers about how people engage with their stores. The highly scalable RetailNext platform easily integrates with promotional calendars, staffing systems, and even weather services to analyze how internal and external factors impact customer shopping patterns, providing retailers with the ability to identify opportunities for growth, execute changes, and measure success.

RetailNext measures the behavior of more than 800 million shoppers every year by collecting data from more than 65,000 sensors in retail stores and analyzing trillions of data points. Headquartered in San Jose, CA, RetailNext is a growing global brand operating in 33 countries.

RetailNext, Inc. and RetailNext are trademarks of RetailNext Inc. in the United States.
Gimbal is a product of Qualcomm Retail Solutions, Inc. Qualcomm is a trademark of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries. All Qualcomm Incorporated marks are used with permission. Gimbal is a trademark of Qualcomm Retail Solutions, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Used with permission.

SOURCE RetailNext Inc.