Retail

Called the “Sexiest job of the year” by the Harvard Business Review and listed as the number-one best job in America on Glassdoor’s most desirable jobs list for 2016, data scientists are here and in high demand. The postings for such job positions on hiring sites like LinkedIn read like a who’s-who of CPG and QSR: Starbucks, Arby’s, General Mills, Miller Coors, Kohl’s, Macys, and the list goes on.

What’s a heuristic? In layman’s terms, it’s judging a book by its cover. It’s when you decide on something based on limited information, just like Pavlov’s dog salivating when it hears a bell. As humans, we use this approach constantly because it’s incredibly efficient. Instead of watching an entire movie, we first look at the trailer. Before eating an entire meal, we first look at the menu. And when choosing retail locations, we simply glance at ten or so factors, make a call, and call it a day.

Cutting-edge technology and brick-and-mortar retailers have never gotten along perfectly. The relationship is complicated, but it can be incredibly harmonious — despite the knee-jerk opposition of many retailers to things like online shopping, mobile apps, bluetooth beacons, and now big data. Business owners who reject these ideas are often left behind as the natural selection of capitalism demands better, smarter, and cheaper strategies. But what about those who embrace these revolutionary technologies? This is where we see an elegant integration of ancient and modern, providing customers with the best of both worlds: the familiarity and convenience of brick-and-mortar retail, enhanced by the actionable and dynamic insights provided by machine learning.

SafeSplash Swim School, the largest and fastest growing swim school brand in North America, is now teaming up with SiteZeus to bring more lessons to more locations, empowering Americans with its exceptional swim instruction and customer service.

While technology seems to shrink objects over time, it super-sizes their performance. Once room-sized, computers have now folded up into our briefcases. Telephones have dwindled into tiny pocket-sized mirrors. And business intelligence analytics? Analytics have been shrunk, packaged, and made affordable to even the most spendthrift sole-proprietors…

TOMS King, a massive Burger King franchisee with over 100 restaurants across 5 states, has officially joined on with SiteZeus. The partnership is the latest in a growing trend of large fast-food companies taking advantage of artificial intelligence for location and data-based decisions.

As a real estate broker, knowing when to use data is tough. How much should you rely on what the demographics tell you? Or how much weight should you place on the painfully obvious vagrancy problem when you drive through the trade area?

Are site expansion targets an illusion? It’s hard to say precisely how many multi-unit retailers fall behind on their 10, 20, 50, or 100-unit growth targets each year, but it’s probably fair to say that it’s quite a lot. All savvy business owners set a high bar for themselves and yet no matter how diligently they run the numbers, development always seems to lag 25-50% behind of what’s expected. Why is this?

Billy Sims, the 1978 Heisman Trophy winner and a former running back for the Detroit Lions, came in hot to the fast casual dining scene in 2004 when he and his partner Jeff Jackson opened up their first franchise in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After successfully building and managing six restaurants, the pair opened up their business to franchisees. They have since mastered their franchise system and expanded to include over 40 locations throughout the midwest.

It was another great show in Vegas, and a must attend event for restaurant company owners and executives.

TAMPA, Fla. (November 21, 2016) — SiteZeus has partnered with TA and Petro Stopping Centers, the largest full-service travel center company in the United States, to provide them with the most intelligent solutions the big-data industry has to offer for real-estate expansions, informed by the most accurate and insightful data sets around.

Tampa, Fla. (October 4, 2016) — SiteZeus®, the leader in location intelligence technology for emerging and established brands, brokers and developers, today announced a location data collaboration with INRIX, the global leader in transportation analytics and connected car services, to bring roadway traffic information to retail site selection and real estate.