Picture This: Do it Best's Retail Pulse Visualizes Where--and Why--Sales Are Slow

By Craig Webb, Webb Analytics

Combine millions of data points from more than 9,000 sources with instant visualizing technology and what have you got? A new, better, and more accurate way for Do it Best members to improve their operations.

The co-op's unveiled its new Retail Pulse product in Denver on March 6 during its Spring Market. Retail Pulse "delivers real-time insights, performance analytics, and actionable benchmarks that help independent dealers make faster, more informed decisions about inventory, category performance, pricing and trends, allowing them to amplify their profitability through smarter execution in store," a Do it Best news release says.

Retail Pulse isn't revolutionary, as numbers-heavy versions have been around for years. It also can't track commodity lumber, so for many of Do it Best's LBM members it has limits. But it does mark an advance in terms of providing peer benchmarks while helping dealers picture their performance better.

Here's how it works.

First, Do it Best compiles the member's data to produce a set of performance metrics, focusing first on inventory turns, gross margin percentage, retail sales dollars, gross margins, and gross margin return on inventory (GMROI). The data can display performance over the past three, six, or 12 months.

When the store's Do it Best Territory Sales Manager visits, they can show store leaders not only how their store is performing, but they also can compare that store's performance with a peer group of similar Do it Best stores based on factors like size, location, and product mix. With roughly 9,000 locations in the Do it Best system following its takeover of True Value, the co-op says it now has data from the industry's biggest collection of stores that it can use for making comparisons.

Prior to the meeting, the territory manager also has created a virtual version of the store, showing where all the sales areas are located and what they sell. This can go down to the planogram level.

Then, using the sales data, Retail Pulse can show which departments in the store are beating their peers (the green parts), which are pretty much in line with peers (marked in yellow), and which are doing more poorly compared with the peers (red areas).

Of course, not all departments carry the same financial weight. So Retail Pulse also gives a holistic view of a store's departmental performance. In the example above, nine of the 31 departments are performing at or below the store's peers, but collectively they are less than a third of the store's assets. (Note: This chart can be shown not just in terms of sales but also profitability, and turnover.)

In the case above, the water heater section was marked in red. With Retail Pulse, the store owner can dig in and find how each subcategory is doing. ...

... and then Retail Pulse can give recommendations on what to do about an issue.

Do it Best President Nick Talarico said Retail Pulse makes it possible for members to compare performance against relevant peer groups, flag where inventory isn’t working hard enough, identify missing key items that are selling in similar stores, highlight where margin can be improved, and identify opportunities before they become problems.

Most important, Talarico said, Retail Pulse helps companies "turn that insight into action."