Clear Demand: Orchestrating OmniChannel Retail Turnarounds by Understanding Consumer Demand

James Sills’ insatiable childhood curiosity with how things work led him to Georgia Tech and a career in engineering, where he established a foundation which would later serve him well in building leading retail pricing software companies. “The present-day sophisticated shopper, armed with a smartphone, is aware of competitor pricing and broader assortment choices when entering a Brick and Mortar store, whereas the retailer may be unaware of competitive price options. The impending need for retailers is a more dynamic and data-rich analysis of consumer demand and competitive data-regardless of channel or consumer touch-point,” states Sills, the President and CEO of Clear Demand. Clear Demand recently announced the industry’s first OmniChannel Demand Management platform.

Delving deep into his retail industry experience spanning over 25 years, and armed with a clutch of retail industry patents and articles to his credit, Dr.Sills details the intricacies of the inevitable turnaround required by present-day retailers: “The playing field between online and ‘Brick and Mortar’ stores has to be leveled, which begins with more dynamic competitive pricing, more rigorous and automated retail price management and evolved pricing science and price optimization software which respects merchant rules. These are fundamental to our solution philosophy and core to our commitment to helping retailers compete more effectively.”

In the “art and science” of pricing, Clear Demand’s solutions deliver science, which provides retailers with rapid analysis of how pricing, promotions, and markdowns influence demand and sales. The volumes of data tapped from store sales, online purchase behavior, mobile, social media, loyalty programs, and competitive pricing history are analyzed by Clear Demand’s OmniChannel Demand Management platform to understand the value associated with any factor (attribute) which relates to a product purchase. Examples of attributes include product specifications, price/promotion, competitor prices, channel, product placement, and fulfillment (e.g. reserve online–pick-up in-store). Incorporating product attributes, channel and competitor in a “single view of the enterprise,” the platform delivers retailers with more precise and repeatable merchandise intelligence to plan assortment, prices and promotions, across channels. Clear Demand works with leading providers of competitive pricing data such as 360pi to deliver real-time automated competitive alerts and price response.