An article in the New York Times lists the difficulties faced by major retailers in entering the Canadian market. The Canadian market is different in its size, dispersion, availability of resources and obviously consumers, regulations and even language. Therefore, even being hours away the two markets have to be addressed differently. The article also discusses pricing issues. Should the prices match cross border prices? Consumers have access to comparison data from the web and demand “equal” treatment. At another level the entry by US retailers suggests that the retail sector is extremely competitive. Unless the right marketing and operations strategies are deployed the profits can not be milked away. Which brings us to the use of data analytics in retail …
