IRI and Costco launch Costco Collaborative Retail Exchange
Posted by
At an event in Watford on the15th September attended by more than 500 people (covering more than 300 manufacturers), Costco, together with its exclusive insight and technology partner IRI, launched the Costco Collaborative Retail Exchange (CRX). This new collaborative platform will give Costco suppliers in the UK daily point-of-sale (POS) and inventory information directly from Costco’s data warehouses.
The Costco CRX technology platform gives manufacturers a detailed solution for tracking sales in Costco warehouses and means that they no longer have to rely on disparate data sources to gather information. They can use this platform to obtain a full view of Costco’s global business.
The Costco CRX platform also provides historical and daily category tracking which enables suppliers to benchmark their performance against the rest of the category as well as all releasable Costco sub-categories and segments. It will help them easily identify category trends, track their category performance and gain valuable insight into the competitive landscape.
Paul Hinds, senior vice president of Retail Solutions at IRI said: “Costco is excited to debut the Costco CRX programme in the UK and judging by the number of suppliers attending the launch event it’s an eagerly awaited roll-out for manufacturers too. Our enhanced data and technology will make it even easier for Costco’s valued manufacturer community to obtain specific, real-time information about their business at Costco.”
Steve Barnett, trading director at Costco said: “IRI’s ability to transform POS information into actionable business insights for manufacturers is a real winner. We are confident that this new platform will further improve our manufacturer communications and overall success in Costco warehouses.”
IRI has already implemented its Gateway portal for Costco (marketed to suppliers as the Costco’s CRX platform) for more than 750 Costco warehouses in Mexico, the USA and Canada since it first launched in 2004.
