At Brick Meets Click, we've been tracking retailing professionals' experiences and attitudes toward big data for two years now, and more than 100 professionals participated in the Oct. 2013 survey. The results confirm the increasingly important role big data is playing in "changing the game" of retailing.

1. BRICK MEETS CLICK
BIG DATA UPDATE, 4Q 2013
HOW THE GAME IS CHANGING:
BIG DATA IN RETAIL
We’ve been tracking retailing professionals’ experiences and attitudes toward big
data regularly over the past two years. The March 2013 survey made it clear that big
data had the potential to change the way retailers compete. More than 100 professionals participated in the October 2013 survey. The results confirm the increasingly
important role big data is playing in “changing the game” of retailing, and they
point to what we should be watching for in the next 12 to 24 months.
Overall, big data and retail analytics may be only one of the new challenges retailers
are wrestling with, but it stands out because it can do so much — specifically:
>
BIG DATA CAN IMPROVE
EXECUTION, SOMETHING
RETAILERS UNDERSTAND
VERY WELL.
>
ANY SIZE RETAILER, SMALL
OR LARGE, CAN LEVERAGE
IT IF THEY’RE WILLING TO
TAKE THE PLUNGE.
>
BIG DATA CAN CREATE
NEW, PERFORMANCE-
IMPROVING CAPABILITIES.
Brick Meets Click delivers the strategic insight and guidance that retailers,
supplliers, and technology providers need to drive growth by meeting shopper
needs in today’s omnichannel marketplace. Visit us at brickmeetsclick.com.

2. BIG DATA SCORECARD, 4Q 2013
PAGE
3
4
A must-have capability?
Biggest competitive advantages?
Speed and agility.
7
7
8
72% SAY IT WILL SUPPORT FASTER DECISIONS.
How will it surprise and delight
shoppers?
31% FOCUS ON OPTIMIZING DELIVERY OF SHOPPER MESSAGES.
91% SAY IT WILL MAKE GREATER PERSONALIZATION POSSIBLE.
28% ARE MINING FOR SHOPPER INSIGHTS.
digital breadcrumbs are
Which
FOR THE FIRST TIME, SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEBSITE DATA RANK
access to customer data
Will
MANY SEE LIMITS IN THE FUTURE, BUT WILL RESTRICTIONS BE
retailers tracking?
be restricted?
Where’s the supply-side focus?
10
The ROI is taking shape.
10
11
73% CITE ITS PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS CAPABILITIES.
M
ost common focus for projects?
Customers.
5
6
73% SAY IT’S NECESSARY FOR OMNICHANNEL EXECUTION.
Who sponsors the majority
of projects?
Biggest barrier to use?
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
AS HIGHLY AS ITEM-LEVEL SALES DATA.
DRIVEN BY GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS OR SHOPPER CONTROL?
INVENTORY OPTIMIZATION AND SUPPLIER COLLABORATION
GET THE HIGHEST RANKINGS ON THE SUPPLY SIDE.
HALF THE COMPANIES RUNNING BIG DATA PROJECTS HAVE
ESTABLISHED THE BUSINESS CASE AND BEGUN TO
MEASURE BENEFITS.
MARKETING LEADS AT 55%, FOLLOWED BY MERCHANDISING AT 14%.
LACK OF ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS SLOWS ADOPTION.
2

3. A MUST-HAVE
CAPABILITY?
Big Data is creating the capabilities retailers
need to compete in a changed marketplace.
73
% GREE BIG DATA IS NECESSARY TO EXECUTE A
A
SUCCESSFUL OMNICHANNEL STRATEGY.
Traditional competitive tactics will no longer generate the necessary sales growth in a
marketplace that’s been changed by ecommerce and the challenge of connecting with
digitally empowered shoppers. Among retailing professionals, nearly 3 out of 4 believe
that big data will play an important role in creating the capabilities needed to execute
competitive omnichannel strategies, from managing assets across channels to radically
improving customer service and conducting social media dialogs with shoppers.
63
% AY BIG DATA APPLICATIONS MAKE IT EASY TO
S
INNOVATE IN WAYS THAT DISRUPT THE MARKET.
Bringing disruptive change to the market isn’t for all retailers, but big data is likely to be
a part of the process for those who want to play in this space.
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
3

4. THE BIGGEST
COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGES?
Increased speed and agility.
Those who can make and execute decisions confidently and quickly will have the advantage
in today’s fast-moving marketplace, and big d ata is expected to deliver increased
confidence, speed, and agility.
PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS WILL HELP
“SHOW WHERE THE BUSINESS IS GOING.”
RAPID EXECUTION WILL CAPTURE
MORE BENEFITS.
Big data is also making it possible to find out what works and doesn’t work faster than
ever before by including new data sources, and making it possible to move beyond
traditional statistical tools like sampling to direct experimentation.
WHAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT
WAY BIG DATA CAN BE USED TO
CREATE VALUE FOR RETAILERS?
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
73%
USING
PREDICTIVE
ANALYSIS
72%
SUPPORTING
FASTER
DECISIONS
49%
INCLUDING
NEW DATA
SOURCES
33%
EXPANDING
BEYOND
SAMPLING
33%
CREATING
SINGLE DATA
SOURCE
25%
CONDUCTING
LARGE-SCALE
EXPERIMENTS
4

5. MOST COMMON
FOCUS FOR CURRENT
PROJECTS?
Customer messages and
shopper insights.
Omnichannel shoppers offer retailers more opportunities for communication, but the
process is more complicated.
TOP BUSINESS FOCUS: MORE EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS.
Almost a third of current big data projects involve efforts to “optimize the delivery of
messages to shoppers.” Projects range from targeting offers and price optimization
on a local level to improving the timing of display advertising and leveraging two-way
dialog with shoppers.
A STRONG SECOND: MINING DATA FOR SHOPPER INSIGHTS.
More than a quarter of active projects are mining different data sources for shopper
insights. This was the top project focus in our March big data survey.
BUSINESS FOCUS ON CURRENT
BIG DATA PROJECTS
31%
28%
22%
8%
11%
0
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
optimizing delivery of
messages to shoppers
mining for
shopper insights
demand and
assortment planning
collecting/analyzing
market basket transactions
all other
10
20
30
40
50
5

6. HOW WILL BIG DATA
“SURPRISE AND DELIGHT”
SHOPPERS?
Better personalization and
more shopper solutions.
Improving the shopping experience remains a consistent emphasis, but meaningful
differentiation turns on how well retailers can “surprise and delight” their customers.
91% say big data will help retailers personalize their appeal to shoppers.
79% say it will help retailers offer more solutions to customers
(i.e. bundle together products that solve a shopper problem).
These assessments line up with the top sources of value big data can generate for
shoppers. The top two were “receiving more customized offers” and “enabling
discovery of more choices.”
TOP 5 WAYS BIG DATA WILL
HELP RETAILERS SURPRISE
AND DELIGHT SHOPPERS:
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
91%
PERSONALIZING
OFFERS
79%
OFFERING
MORE
“SHOPPER
SOLUTIONS”
70%
IMPROVING
PRODUCT
AVAILABILITY
65%
INTRODUCING
NEW PRODUCTS
65%
AUTOMATING
ROUTINE
REPLENISHMENT
6

7. WHICH “DIGITAL
BREADCRUMBS”
ARE RETAILERS
FOLLOWING TODAY?
38%
SOCIAL
MEDIA
35%
WESITE
VISITS
WILL ACCESS TO
SHOPPER DATA
BE RESTRICTED?
New sources are becoming important.
For the first time since we’ve been tracking big data attitudes among retailing
professionals, social media and website data have gained parity with item-level sales
and shopper transaction data as a source of customer insights.
35%
ITEM-LEVEL
SALES
35%
SHOPPERIDENTIFIED
TRANSACTION
DATA
28%
SHOPPER
FEEDBACK
25%
MOBILE
DEVICES
24%
MARKET
BASKET DATA
16%
IN-STORE
TRACKING
Access may be limited.
There’s concern that access to at least some of this data may be restricted in the future
by either government regulation or individual actions.
Almost half of those surveyed thought this was likely, but a large percentage was
skeptical that individual action would have much impact.
RESTRICTED BY INDIVIDUAL CUSTOMER ACTIONS
48% LIKELY
40% UNLIKELY
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
RESTRICTED BY GOVERNMENT REGULATION
46% LIKELY
16% UNLIKELY
7

8. WHERE’S THE
SUPPLY SIDE FOCUS?
Inventory optimization and supplier collaboration
get top attention.
The supply side of retailing is tailor-made to benefit from big data analytics, because the
work processes generate a lot of information. Data sharing – both within and across/between organizations – will be one of the keys to capturing this value.
On inventory optimization, the ability to bring together sources of data that could not
previously be combined will improve forecasting and make it possible to localize inventory to store-specific requirements.
On supplier collaboration, big data is expected to help integrate ordering and replenishment data across organizations.
RATING BIG DATA’S POTENTIAL
FOR IMPROVING THE SUPPLY
SIDE OF RETAILING
1 = LOW, 5 = HIGH
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
4.4
INVENTORY
OPTIMIZATION
4.2
SUPPLIER
COLLABORATION
3.9
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
MANAGEMENT
3.5
WORKFORCE/
LABOR
MANAGEMENT
8

9. WHAT DATA HAS VALUE
FOR IMPROVING
SUPPLY-SIDE
PERFORMANCE?
Shopper data joins item data.
Item-level movement data — POS data and market basket data — is still recognized most
broadly as the type of big data that will improve supply-side performance, but tracking
in-store shopper behavior and shopper feedback are not far behind.
100
item movement
80
60
86
%
tracking in-store
shopper behavior
75%
shopper feedback
73%
40
20
0
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
9

10. WHAT’S THE STATUS OF
BIG DATA PROJECTS?
Adoption is progressing and ROI is taking shape.
62
% F COMPANIES RESPONDING WERE INVOLVED
O
50
IN BIG DATA PROJECTS.
% THEM HAVE ESTABLISHED THE BUSINESS
OF
CASE 48% ARE MEASURING BENEFITS.
ALMOST HALF OF PROJECTS
ARE AT OR NEAR COMPLETION.
55%
MARKETING
25%
START
START UP
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
14%
MERCHANDISING
18%
ASSEMBLING
DATA
11%
9%
OPERATIONS
PROTOTYPING
18%
IN PILOT
7%
IT
27%
PRODUCTION
FINISH
MARKETING SPONSORS
THE MAJORITY OF BIG DATA
PROJECTS.
10

11. THE BIGGEST BARRIER
TO ADOPTION?
Lack of organizational readiness.
Among the top four barriers cited, none stood out dramatically, but they all
represented different dimensions of the same thing: a lack of organizational
readiness to take advantage of big data.
WHAT ARE THE MOST
IMPORTANT BARRIERS TO
PROGRESS IN USING BIG DATA
AMONG THE COMPANIES
YOU WORK WITH?
5.5
INADEQUATE
INFRASTRUCTURE/
STAFF
5.4
BUDGET
LIMITATIONS
5.1
SHORTAGE OF
DATA SCIENTISTS
4.8
ORGANIZATIONS
AREN’T NOW
USING AVAILABLE
DATA
8 = MOST IMPORTANT
1 = LEAST IMPORTANT
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
11

12. WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?
Send us your comments on big data in retail.
Use the Contact Us form at brickmeetsclick.com to email us.
Visit brickmeetsclick.com/we-want-your-business-to-grow for more information on
our services for retailers, suppliers, and technology providers.
brickmeetsclick.com BIG DATA update 4Q 2013
12