Of course there is no getting around the generation of these transactions but there are plenty of problems with collecting and analyzing them. There doesn't seem to be a good estimate of the number of retail transactions produced every day but the worldwide total would seem to be in the billions. Even if each individual transaction were only a few bytes in size the transmission and storage of this data is daunting. Creating a centralized repository of the transactions and then performing the analyltics to deliver useful insights in reasonable timeframes would seem equally difficult.

But the fact is that this kind of capture, storage, analysis, and reporting is being done. The question is however, is the data that you need for your products available to you?

Retail giants are increasingly offering transaction data to their suppliers. Some even provide it in condition to be used immediately. But for most supplier companies the challenge to product meaningful and actionable findings is beyond their reach.

What systems and services have you found to be useful... and affordable for transaction data?