Many major retailers provide their transactional data as a matter of course. For them, the data is a byproduct of their normal activities and the expense of providing the data is minimal. That said, POS data files can be dauntingly large, even when they include only the transactions from a single vendor’s products. There are ways to handle these volumes of data, but using Excel to import and view the data is usually not sufficient.

To be used to its greatest advantage POS data needs to be housed in a robust database that can handle complex analytical queries to deliver easily understood reports and dashboards. For most suppliers, creating and managing these kinds of data structures is beyond not only their expertise, but the time they have. A better use of the information is the careful and periodic review of the analytics they can produce, followed by application to their business needs.

As a starting place, suppliers should check with their most important retailers and determine whether, and in what forms their POS data is available. Some retailers provide their data only through specific providers while others deliver periodic downloads. If the retailer is locked in with a single provider there is little the supplier can do but to contact that provider and begin to understand what is offered. In some cases, the offerings are useful and reasonably prices.

If the retailer provides its POS data in download form then the supplier has options to use the data themselves or to contract with a POS analytics provider that is capable of collecting and storing the retailer’s data and providing the supplier with information presented in ways that are helpful to the supplier. In general these kinds of relationships are more beneficial to suppliers than are the locked-in providers chosen by retailers because the supplier has the option to incorporate POS data from multiple retailers into a single analytical system, and produce aggregated results that can be much more informative about how products are performing compared across multiple retailers.

Whether you have options to select your own POS data repository or are forced to use one designated by your retailer, knowing more and knowing it sooner is smarter business than just looking at last month’s or last year’s orders and trying to plan production.