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Hot or Not? This ‘Prediction Engine’ Helps Retail Chase the Right Trends

Product intelligence platform Trendalytics has updated its retailing tool, TrendPulse, to include augmented predictive analytics capabilities for the industry’s most popular trends.

“We’re finally delivering on what we’ve been promising our clients on the market in terms of being truly predictive, and offering them the answers to questions that they truly need to drive business decisions,” Kathy Leake, CEO of Trendalytics, told Sourcing Journal.

The improved service will help merchants and buying teams by offering in-depth data analysis that can help them decide how much product to purchase, and when. The platform also rates trends with “confidence scores,” Leake said, giving buyers even more insight into whether a trend’s potential is accelerating or slowing.

“The people that get the most out of the platform are those folks who have to be able to think with both left and right brain,” Leake said. Buyers need to stay up to date on the market, she opined, but they also require insight into where trends are in their lifecycle, and whether they have staying power.

“That’s really the ethos of the company and why we exist: to be a prediction engine for retailers,” she said.

The TrendPulse platform combines quick and easy access to search, market, and social data, and it’s all available on the platform’s dashboard. A new discovery center on the homepage provides a snapshot of the most important trends of the moment, and predicts their market potential.

Users now also have more advanced filter capabilities, along with new trend indicators, at their disposal. In addition to searching micro or macro trends by their aesthetic features, buyers can now filter their searches with criteria to indicate sustainable materials, for example.

“Our new platform will empower retailers to act faster and with more precision, ultimately resulting in more profitable performance,” Leake said.

Of the trends that have the potential to disrupt in 2020, Trendalytics communications and marketing manager Sarah Barnes asserted that 1970s-inspired looks are back in style—according to TrendPulse data. Motown-esque suiting along with flowing, midsummer boho silhouettes promise to overtake the spring selling season, she said.