Data Sources

Velocity integrates POS information across multiple retailers with forecasting, shipment, inventory and other internal data along with syndicated data sources and transforms this data into actionable answers to a wide range of business questions.

	Corporate	Customer
Company	Trading Partner IDs (per business unit) Fiscal Calendar	Trading Partner IDs Fiscal Calendar (per customer)
Product Items	Item Items Hierarchies Item Dimensions	Items Item Code Cross Reference Item Hierarchies & Dimensions
Location	Field Service Alignments Regions & Districts	Stores Store Clusters & Dimensions     Regions, Districts, Markets Distribution Centers     Store Alignments
Analysis	Weather, by zip code Demographics, by zip code	Demographics, by store
Category		Planogram Store assignments

	Corporate	Customer
Time	Period Type: Day, Week, Month Fiscal Period: Year, Period	Period Type: Day, Week, Month Fiscal Period: Year, Period
POS		Sales     Units     Currency
Inventory	Shipments	Inventory     Store    Warehouse/DC Receipts, Withdrawals
Replenishment	Sales Plan	Forecast Store replenishment flags Reorder points - Min, Max
Syndicated	Market Competitive Share
Category Advisor		Other vendors Competitive sales data

Retailers today collaborate with their manufacturers and distributors and share relevant sales information in the hope of increasing profits. The most commonly shared data is that collected from the UPC at the cash register, Point of Sale (POS) data. POS data is sent electronically from the retailers in forms known as EDI 852, EDI 867 or a proprietary system. The EDI 852 conveys sales figures that can be as specific as by the store or as general as the chain, while the EDI 867 details the prevailing conditions. Most data sources can be updated automatically as often as daily or as rarely as monthly, depending on the retailer. For details on the information supplied by each retailer, see our Retailer POS Source pages. (Login required.)

Some retailers have gone farther and share forecasting information with their suppliers, generally through EDI 830 or a proprietary system. Many also share replenishment and stock tracking data via EDI 852 or a proprietary system, as well as store and distribution center lists that come from EDI 816 and flat files. Velocity will collect all this and more, and integrate it with your other data sources.

Consumer goods companies often purchase 3rd party data, such as syndicated, demographics or weather trends, to help assess particular markets. Syndicated data does not include inventory information and tends to be too cost prohibitive to access store-specific data. It is generally leveraged as information about the conditions or business climate in a given market or region. Regardless of the granularity, Velocity can pull this data into the data warehouse and harmonize it with your other data so they can be used together for in-depth analyses.