Coupons

Investors want to know if inventory is flying off the shelves . . . even if there are no shelves.

It’s obvious that watching inventory move (or not move) can be a good proxy for sales. But what if the target isn’t selling tangible things? What if they are selling promotions, coupons, deals, and special events? 

System2 undertook a deep dive into a company exactly like this, but when the engagement started, inventory wasn’t even on the list of things to look at. It got there only once we began to stitch together various datasets and clear patterns started to emerge. The data painted a picture of inventory moving back and forth--not traditional brick and mortar inventory--but digital inventory that was core to the company’s business model. We set up a target, so now we had to hit it.

Scraping for Signal

Once System2 realized what to look for, it was just a matter of identifying, scraping, cleaning, validating, joining, and mapping the data. Then doing that repeatedly and consistently over time. 

Using its proprietary toolkit, System2 created a layer of dynamic visualizations that tracked the company’s inventory by type and customer as it evolved. In other words, System2 could see the company’s largest customers, what they were buying, and how much they were buying.

That was interesting so far as it goes, but it got really noteworthy when one of the company’s largest accounts dropped out of the data. The company had lost a significant source of revenue and was very likely to miss earnings when the quarter closed, which is exactly what we told our client.