NGA and BRdata Team on Cloud-Based Data Solution for Indies
The National Grocers Association (NGA), the trade association representing the independent supermarket industry, and retail software solutions provider BRdata have joined forces to help independent grocers employ data analytics to stay up to date on key market trends and drive sales.
NGA Independent Insights powered by BRdata is an independent-centric cloud-based program that lets users see item and category trends among independents nationwide to more easily determine which trending items they aren’t selling or are underselling, as well as the ability to identify underperforming categories.
The solution can also assist vendors in helping grocers merchandise and provide volume-based deals by making use of data focused solely on independents rather than being amalgamated with all grocers. This permits vendors to understand the impact of promotions and item lift among independent retailers.
“NGA Independent Insights powered by BRdata will provide our members with aggregated analytics to better negotiate with their CPG partners, which will in turn drive more promotions to their stores and discounts to shoppers, making independent community grocers competitive,” noted Greg Ferrara, president and CEO of Washington, D.C.-based NGA. “This solution makes reams of important marketplace data digestible and easily accessible to grocery operators of any size. It’s yet another service that NGA is proud to offer, to enhance the operations of our members.”
NGA Independent Insights will enable users to drill down to see the top trends in their region and state. The solutions will also allow users to compare trends among stores of similar sizes and in similar areas, in addition to predicting categories that will be trending in the near future.
The solution works with almost all point-of-sale platforms. “Installation can be done on any store server that can easily access daily transaction logs from the POS,” said John Abbene, president of Melville, N.Y.-based BRdata. “The secure cloud-based solution can be run anywhere, with analytics accessible on any modern browser, Android or iOS device.”
Additionally, users of the solution own their own data. “BRdata is providing analytics aggregated from independent grocers while NGA acts as a partner,” added Abbene. “The platform runs on Microsoft Azure, an industry-leading secure cloud provider to keep data protected at rest and in transit.”
