First Insight Announces 2018 as Year of Growth Led by Innovation and Expansion

Explosive Increase in Customers and Revenues as Company Looks Toward Continued Growth in 2019.

PITTSBURGH, January 10, 2019 -- First Insight, Inc., a technology company transforming how leading retailers, brands and wholesalers make product investment, pricing and marketing decisions, today announced significant milestones achieved during 2018.

Throughout the year, First Insight forged partnerships with new customers and expanded existing relationships, unveiled market insights for a deeper understanding across the retail industry, continued innovating predictive analytics for customer-based product, pricing and planning decisions, and was recognized by global research and advisory firm Gartner for the sixth consecutive year.

“The retail industry remains dynamic and in a state of rapid change as new innovations, strategies, and technologies continue to shape not only the industry, but consumer expectations for the products they buy,” said Greg Petro, CEO of First Insight. “Understanding the consumer requires that retailers and brands remain in synch with their expectations to maintain and grow sales and margins. We’ve had an exceptional year and continue to successfully deliver solutions that enable the industry to offer consumers the right product at the right price, and target them with the right offers. As we head into 2019, these solutions will only become more important as the changing regulatory landscape could impact everything from supply chain to pricing. Interest in First Insight is accelerating as we look toward another year of high growth.”

Highlights from 2018 include:

• Expansion of Retail Partnerships: In 2018, First Insight expanded its partnerships with many customers and extended the solution to more products and categories. Some examples include BJ’s Wholesale Club, Chico’s FAS, Marks & Spencer and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
  

  “We are excited to expand our use of the First Insight Platform to new categories and continue to offer value to our members with the right products, features and prices,” said Chris Desantis, Senior Vice President of General Merchandise at BJ’s Wholesale Club.
  
  “Our robust customer data, combined with the First Insight platform, enables us to make better product, pricing and targeted marketing decisions," said Ann Joyce, Chief Customer Officer and EVP, Technology, Supply Chain and Store Operations at Chico’s FAS, Inc. "First Insight supports our voice of the customer strategy and over the last two years, we have confirmed the ROI of their platform through increased sales and margins of the select Chico’s brand products processed through the solution. We are excited to expand our partnership with First Insight to the White House Black Market brand and to additional apparel categories within the Chico’s brand.” 

• Additional Retail Partnerships and Expansions: During 2018, First Insight experienced massive growth in new retail and brand partnerships, bringing its total customer count to over 100. Retailers such as Justice, part of Ascena Retail Group, became part of the First Insight customer roster: “The tween segment is fast-moving, and historical data often does not provide an accurate view as to the products our customers will want, or the prices they will pay next season,” said Jason Judd, senior vice president, finance and CFO of Justice. “By working with First Insight, we’re not only picking our products better, but we’re pricing them right from the outset, and we’re already seeing great benefits to our bottom line.”

• Introduction of New Innovative Products and Services: First Insight launched the industry’s first Customer-Centric Merchandising Platform, a suite of expanded solutions which builds on First Insight’s pre-season product testing platform to bring deeper analysis, increased predictive capabilities, precise price forecasting, targeted customer segmentation data and accurate buy quantity recommendations on new products. 
  
  First Insight more than doubled its product development and data science resources during 2018, constantly pushing the envelope in introducing new functionality.  Major 2018 product launches include updated data models based on the latest AI & machine learning technologies, assortment planning capabilities including buy quantity analysis, price elasticity forecasting, mobile app functionality, additional international language/currency capabilities, and much more.

• Market Insights and Proprietary Research: First Insight also undertook ground-breaking research to uncover the changing mindset of consumers, enabling retailers and brands to more quickly align products and prices with their expectations.

In March, First Insight unveiled the report Mind the Gap: The Gender Effect on Shopping Habits and Technology Disruptors, discovering significant discrepancies between men and women in shopping, including the observation that men are not embracing online shopping as much as women and are more likely to shop at full-price retailers.

In June, the company issued the report Quality More Important to Consumers than Price as Influence of Discounts on Purchase Decisions Declines, which discovered through consumer surveys that 53 percent of consumers rate quality as the most important factor when making a purchase, compared to price at 38 percent.

In October, First Insight issued a report The Pricing Disconnect Between Senior Retail Executives & Consumers, which found that only 20 percent of senior retail executives thought consumers found low pricing to be important in purchasing decisions, while in actuality 40 percent of consumers found this to be the most important factor. This was among many other significant discrepancies between executives and consumers.

The company was also recognized by Gartner by being named a Representative Vendor in the firm’s 2018 “Market Guide for Unified Price, Promotion and Markdown Optimization (UPPMO) Applications,” as well as its “Hype Cycle for Retail Technologies, 2018” for a sixth consecutive year. 

First Insight invites retailers, brands, wholesalers and media to meet with the company at the NRF 2019 Big Show at the Javits Center in New York City, January 13-15, 2019, in Booth # 3973.  To schedule a meeting with First Insight at the show, click here or contact info@firstinsight.com

Also, an NRF feature-stage session, “Product paradigm shift: Customer-centric merchandising in the age of data and decision agility” will feature Michael Gilbert (EVP of Product Development at Kohl’s), Mark Chrystal (Chief Analytics Officer at rue21), and Ann Joyce (CCO and CTO at Chico’s FAS Inc.) and will be moderated by Greg Petro (CEO of First Insight).  The session is on Monday Jan 14 at 2:15pm on the Feature Stage.  

About First Insight, Inc.
First Insight is the world’s leading provider of customer-centric merchandising solutions that empower retailers and brands to incorporate the voice of the customer into the design and merchandising of new products. Through the use of online consumer engagement, the First Insight solution gathers real-time consumer data and applies predictive analytic models to create actionable insights, which drive measurable value. Retailers, manufacturers and brands use the First Insight solution to design, select, price, plan and market the most profitable new products for reduced markdown rates and improved sales, margins and inventory turnover. Customers include some of world’s leading vertically integrated brands, sporting goods companies, department stores, mass merchant retailers and wholesalers. For further information, please visit www.firstinsight.com.