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I work at a very large retail organization (in distribution) and I can confirm we use Excel for absolutely everything, either that or Access. The closest thing we have to big data web services is that some of our Access files are configured in a way so that you don't lock it when you're using it. But only some of our files. They're hiring a loooooot of programmers though, something like 3/4 of the corporate headquarters is just devoted to web & computer programmers. It will be fun to see if any of that will float down to us or if it's just to make the websites better (probably the latter).
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Aug 9, 2016 03:31
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gay rites posted:this is amazing Business types loving love excel.
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Aug 9, 2016 04:49
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Their accountants couldn't spot it? What am I saying, accountants' customers are the corporations, not the shareholders. Rule One applies to all contractors. If your security is investigating reporters, pay a bonus for juicy info.
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Aug 9, 2016 06:56
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Popular Thug Drink posted:consistently it's the largest organizations we work with that have the most problems and the most hosed up god awful procedures and idiotic trouble spots that could easily be avoided, because small fish are either competent or they go out of business Monopoly capital FTW
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Aug 9, 2016 08:06
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computer parts posted:I work at a very large retail organization (in distribution) and I can confirm we use Excel for absolutely everything, either that or Access. The closest thing we have to big data web services is that some of our Access files are configured in a way so that you don't lock it when you're using it. But only some of our files. https://twitter.com/devops_borat/status/288698056470315008?lang=en
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Aug 9, 2016 10:46
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Excel persists because the people at top want the summaries in excel format and then they want data as well so they can play around with it for some reason and so after the painful back and forths the data guys just say gently caress it and work in excel.
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Aug 9, 2016 12:53
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cowofwar posted:Excel persists because the people at top want the summaries in excel format and then they want data as well so they can play around with it for some reason and so after the painful back and forths the data guys just say gently caress it and work in excel. imo it's because excel hits that sweet spot of being not too complicated to use and not too simple as to be useless, so it's great for the hands on middle manager type who has some data knowledge and can bang out a formula or two but starts hissing like a vampire when they have to write anything as complicated as markup
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Aug 9, 2016 15:43
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Jumpingmanjim posted:hehe Pretty sure this exact scenario is described in multiple guerrilla marketing manuals
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Aug 9, 2016 16:19
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How much do actual programmers cost? How much does excel and a few interns cost?
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Aug 9, 2016 18:35
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This just blows my loving mind - I work for a large older company and at least we have Tableau all over the place. I'm really shocked that even after everyone jerked off to Big Data (tm) porn they still aren't using something more than what's found in a typical MS Office installation.
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Aug 9, 2016 18:58
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Popular Thug Drink posted:
Yes. We have an army of analytics people and they are all belittled and ignored, when it's not HR, IT, sourcing, or another horrible administrative unit loving things up and making a ton more work for everyone. I estimate about 70% of our resources go to internal politics and infighting. And we're wildly, wildly successful. Gravy train isn't going to last forever. Things are just going to be one giant race to the bottom, and we'll be caught sleeping.
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Aug 10, 2016 04:46
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So if grocery stores absolutely suck at data analysis, what was the whole point of those cards you had to swipe to get better deals on purchases? Wasn't the whole point of those to collect a poo poo ton of data and do something with it, or did they just never follow through?
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Aug 10, 2016 14:52
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Solkanar512 posted:So if grocery stores absolutely suck at data analysis, what was the whole point of those cards you had to swipe to get better deals on purchases? Wasn't the whole point of those to collect a poo poo ton of data and do something with it, or did they just never follow through? It's the follow through bit. It's relatively easy to collect and store data at the point of sale but to do anything with it requires huge changes and systems. More to the point it often requires collecting additional information that the company may have no good way to gather or even a mechanism to execute on. Don't worry though, in the us drug industry they know absolutely everything they are legally allowed to know about you and can get as precise as advertising to your doctor when the access the system to write your drug perscription.
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Aug 10, 2016 14:58
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Solkanar512 posted:So if grocery stores absolutely suck at data analysis, what was the whole point of those cards you had to swipe to get better deals on purchases? Wasn't the whole point of those to collect a poo poo ton of data and do something with it, or did they just never follow through? My entire family has been using the same number for 20+ years, linked with an address from that time. Even if they wanted to advertise at the humans associated with that number, I have no idea how they would.
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Aug 10, 2016 14:59
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Solkanar512 posted:So if grocery stores absolutely suck at data analysis, what was the whole point of those cards you had to swipe to get better deals on purchases? Wasn't the whole point of those to collect a poo poo ton of data and do something with it, or did they just never follow through? Pretty much every retail establishment (not just groceries) is a bunch of segregated systems with lots of data that occasionally talk to each other. The goal moving forward is to integrate these systems so that the left hand knows what the right's doing. In a lot of cases, businesses are doing what's known as "Omnichannel" retailing. Basically the idea is that if you go into (e.g.) Home Depot, you can get your paint or whatever. You go to their website, you can get exactly that same item, pay for it, and either have it delivered or pick up at your local store. You call up their customer service, you can theoretically order something via customer service and have the exact same experience*. It's a very very difficult undertaking, but the general idea is to make the experience of purchasing as painless as possible, for obvious reasons. *Apparently this is a real thing that happens, in enough frequency that it's worth investing money into. 
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Aug 10, 2016 15:11
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Boot and Rally posted:My entire family has been using the same number for 20+ years, linked with an address from that time. Even if they wanted to advertise at the humans associated with that number, I have no idea how they would. I just punch in my area code then 867-5309 for the discount.
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Aug 10, 2016 15:37
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Solkanar512 posted:So if grocery stores absolutely suck at data analysis, what was the whole point of those cards you had to swipe to get better deals on purchases? Wasn't the whole point of those to collect a poo poo ton of data and do something with it, or did they just never follow through? They can also sell the data to other companies who think it's going to be useful.
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Aug 10, 2016 16:00
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For Home Depot it makes sense at least, a contractor can just tell his order into the phone instead of trying to squint at it in the middle of s bright sunny day on a work site. For other retail stores? Nope.
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Aug 10, 2016 16:11
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What they would like to have happen is an order at the point of sale would generate orders at the very beginning of the supply chain all the way back at raw materials. In other words sales would directly determine how much of a thing they need to manufacture through the whole chain But this isn't just an integrate the data across one company thing this isn't integrate the data all the way back to the beginning of the supply chain thing. It's a ways off but there are one or two Supply chains already doing it. Edit: the goal being to reduce inventory in all parts of supply chain.
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Aug 10, 2016 17:21
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hobbesmaster posted:For Home Depot it makes sense at least, a contractor can just tell his order into the phone instead of trying to squint at it in the middle of s bright sunny day on a work site. When I did customer service (fitness bands), "buying by calling customer service" was me popping over to our online store, creating a new order, and asking the customer on the other end what to put in each field. Some people really hate using the computer to make purchases while also being totally okay with using it to track their movement and sleep habits.
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Aug 10, 2016 17:33
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hobbesmaster posted:For Home Depot it makes sense at least, a contractor can just tell his order into the phone instead of trying to squint at it in the middle of s bright sunny day on a work site. It makes sense because you never turn down sales. The answer to "can I, an employee, sell things" is yes unless legal reasons crop up. If customer service is talking to somebody and they want to buy something while they're on the phone them you do it. It would be stupid to not have a system in place for that.
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Aug 10, 2016 17:48
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That feels like a holdover from 70s/80s department stores. "Hey there is the Oster Mixtech9000 you have in your newspaper ad in store? The one that's $49.99? Great, here's my name and address I'll be right over to buy it please hold it for me!"
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Aug 10, 2016 17:52
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My idiot company is going about this in the worst way possible. A lot of times our online store offers the same items cheaper than in store, and instead of price matching, they want us to use out tablet to order it for them. Yes, 9/10 customers look at me like I'm retarded when I explain the policy to them. They also implemented this without Square or an alternative, so if someone does want to order something with our assistance, they are required to manually type all of their card info in on the tablet.
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Aug 10, 2016 18:52
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DrNutt posted:My idiot company is going about this in the worst way possible. Half the time you would have to buy it online, in store, for in-store delivery and just wait around until it was ready for pickup. The other half you'd buy it and wait for it to get shipped.
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Aug 10, 2016 19:03
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FilthyImp posted:There was a period of time where BestBuy would segregate it's online and in-store prices. So you'd walk in because a TV or game was on sale, only to find that the store price was different and they wouldn't pricematch it.
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Aug 10, 2016 19:05
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Arsenic Lupin posted:It's even better than that. They installed fake Web browsers in their stores so the salesperson could go to Bestbuy.com and show you the deal you wanted didn't really exist. That seems that like something that would be criminal even in the United States.
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Aug 10, 2016 19:26
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blugu64 posted:They can also sell the data to other companies who think it's going to be useful. This is the actual answer. Most retailers don't have the technical sophistication to do anything useful on their own with granular purchase data, but there a lot of data broker companies that do and they pay relatively good money for it. In the past this was mostly used for direct mail — they'd sell lists of people who bought certain kinds of things to marketers who would then send those people junk mail. Nowadays, a lot of this data is resold to online sites that combine it with their own data to retarget their users. Actually, funny story. You know how Facebook is always talking about how valuable the data they have about users is? It isn't actually that valuable. Around the time of their IPO they started looking seriously at ad targeting as a way to juice their flagging revenue numbers, and they realized that while they were all up in their users business and knew their most intimate secrets, almost none of this data was the kind of thing advertisers wanted. If you think about it, it makes sense — an advertiser is very unlikely to care that you obsessively stalk your ex on Facebook or like the I loving Love Science page, but they are VERY interested in the fact that you go to McDonalds 3 times a week, something Facebook couldn't actually tell them. People just don't post about their purchase habits or interact with brands much. So Facebook struck a deal with three of the the biggest data brokers — Datalogix (Oracle), Acxiom, and Epsilon — to add data that advertisers actually care about to its ad targeting systems. And where did they get that data? Retail loyalty card programs, mostly. So now we have a hilarious situation where retailers pay Facebook for the privilege of targeting their customers using data they probably already have. Home Depot sells its loyalty card data to Datalogix who sells it to Facebook who basically sells it back to Home Depot. Retail ad targeting is a snake eating its own tail. Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Aug 10, 2016 |
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Aug 10, 2016 19:36
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Arsenic Lupin posted:It's even better than that. They installed fake Web browsers in their stores so the salesperson could go to Bestbuy.com and show you the deal you wanted didn't really exist. Best Buy has been noted for their bait and switch tactics in the past. I briefly worked for Geek Squad when I was a teen, and was the only one actually with any certifications. Initially, it was all about fixing customer's machines (Best Buy had JUST acquired Geek Squad), but then it became about selling people new computers, even lying about their machine being infected beyond the point of no return.
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Aug 10, 2016 19:40
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There was a time when -- I am not making this up -- Best Buy would kick you out if they saw you writing down prices for comparison.
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Aug 10, 2016 19:47
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Arsenic Lupin posted:There was a time when -- I am not making this up -- Best Buy would kick you out if they saw you writing down prices for comparison. They still do. Happened to me, I was comparing prices to Frys and Microcenter. Some floor manager came up to me and told me I'd have to leave.
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Aug 10, 2016 19:50
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy posted:The Hitchhiker's Travel Guide describes the Marketing Department of
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Aug 10, 2016 19:52
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I went to bestbuy to buy a usb extension cable and they had a bunch online but in store only the $30 one. I'm actually impressed that bestbuy retail stores still exist. Bigbox is on the way out.
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Aug 10, 2016 19:55
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cowofwar posted:I went to bestbuy to buy a usb extension cable and they had a bunch online but in store only the $30 one.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:00
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FilthyImp posted:There was a period of time where BestBuy would segregate it's online and in-store prices. So you'd walk in because a TV or game was on sale, only to find that the store price was different and they wouldn't pricematch it.  .Baby Babbeh posted:This is the actual answer. Most retailers don't have the technical sophistication to do anything useful on their own with granular purchase data, but there a lot of data broker companies that do and they pay relatively good money for it. In the past this was mostly used for direct mail — they'd sell lists of people who bought certain kinds of things to marketers who would then send those people junk mail. Nowadays, a lot of this data is resold to online sites that combine it with their own data to retarget their users.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:05
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cowofwar posted:Bigbox is on the way out. For the most part yet, but you still have Frys and Microcenter that have low overhead, few stores, and are very hobbyist friendly, so they keep customers.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:06
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CommieGIR posted:For the most part yet, but you still have Frys and Microcenter that have low overhead, few stores, and are very hobbyist friendly, so they keep customers.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:09
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Baby Babbeh posted:This is the actual answer. Most retailers don't have the technical sophistication to do anything useful on their own with granular purchase data, but there a lot of data broker companies that do and they pay relatively good money for it. The other trick that is done is with relatively few bits of data, you can get full personalized datasets on your customers. So maybe you only collect a phone number, and name. You can then run out and buy the address/birthdate(s)/etc from these other companies and presto.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:09
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cowofwar posted:Our local Asian computer store chains, Canada Computers in Ontario and NCIX(Netlink) in BC are doing well and expanding but their stores are like 1/100th of the size yet somehow more useful. Local Microcenter has tons of Arduino/Hobbyist Electronics stuff, and is not even a quarter of the size of Best Buy, but has more products and better selection. Its been my go to since Radioshack finally shriveled.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:10
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cowofwar posted:I went to bestbuy to buy a usb extension cable and they had a bunch online but in store only the $30 one. They're the third or fourth largest appliance retailer in the US, that's literally the main reason why they're still around. FilthyImp posted:That feels like a holdover from 70s/80s department stores. "Hey there is the Oster Mixtech9000 you have in your newspaper ad in store? The one that's $49.99? Great, here's my name and address I'll be right over to buy it please hold it for me!" That's actually exactly right, except the idea is to cater to people who grew up in that system. The difference today is that you can (usually) get it shipped to you as well as in-store pickup. computer parts fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Aug 10, 2016 |
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Aug 10, 2016 20:16
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blugu64 posted:The other trick that is done is with relatively few bits of data, you can get full personalized datasets on your customers. So maybe you only collect a phone number, and name. You can then run out and buy the address/birthdate(s)/etc from these other companies and presto. Also, identity thieves can do this too! There's been a few instances where criminals have set up shell corporations to buy data from brokers that they combine with stuff they have from data breaches to make a profile they can use to open credit cards in their victims' names, take out loans, etc. Here's a good example: Experian Sold Consumer Data to ID Theft Service. It's cool though, when data breaches happen, like Experian itself getting hacked a couple years later, the company responsible usually buys you identity theft protection. Know who provides that? Experian. Hmm....
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Aug 10, 2016 20:34
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