Blog · Alternatives and comparisons
Evaluate retail analytics platforms against the questions your sales, inventory and store exports can answer. Use a reconciled test case to compare approaches, check results and decide who will own the work.
Retail analytics platforms should be evaluated against reconciled sales, inventory and store exports, using the questions your team needs to answer. Start with an agreed result and ask each option to reproduce it, explain the differences and show the contributing rows. That makes data fit and ongoing ownership visible before a buying decision.
A merchandise retailer usually needs to explain where sales changed, whether gross profit followed and which stock needs attention. Turn those broad needs into specific questions: which stores lost net sales, which products account for the margin change, and whether reported closing stock agrees with recorded movements.
For the measures behind those questions, see the retail analytics overview. Keep a platform evaluation focused on whether an approach can answer them from your actual exports. A gallery of finished reports does not establish that the input fields mean the same thing as yours.
Make a short question register before meeting vendors or testing an approach:
| Business question | Required export | Acceptance evidence | Business owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Which stores changed net sales? | POS lines, returns, store list | Net sales match the approved period total | Retail finance |
| Which products changed gross profit? | Sales lines and matched product costs | Revenue less cost equals gross profit | Merchandising finance |
| Does closing stock reconcile? | Opening stock and inventory movements | Movement balance equals the closing snapshot | Inventory control |
| Which shoppers returned? | Matched transaction and customer records | Identified and unidentified transactions are separated | Customer team |
The final question requires different records. Use retail customer analytics to define that work instead of treating customer coverage as a prerequisite for every sales analysis.
These are evaluation categories, not promises about every product in a category. Ask the provider to demonstrate the required behavior on your files.
| Approach | Appropriate evaluation question | Work to account for |
|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheet analysis | Can the analyst reproduce and explain a bounded comparison? | Formula review, version control and repeat preparation |
| Recurring BI reporting | Can the team maintain agreed measures across reporting periods? | Measure ownership, refresh checks and changes to exported columns |
| Merchandise planning tools | Can supplied assumptions support the assortment or stock decision? | Planning definitions, actual-versus-plan comparison and approvals |
| File-based business analysis | Can a business user compare exported measures and inspect their basis? | File completeness, column mapping and reconciliation |
Covirage provides the file-based business analysis option: upload a file, then Covirage maps the columns and its tools compute and check the figures. The external AI model explains the results with every figure traced to its rows. Evaluate that workflow with the same records and acceptance checks you use elsewhere.
If evaluating explanations involving AI, the AI analytics overview gives the broader context. The purchasing question remains concrete: can your team verify the answer and use it to make a decision?
Consider a fictional US housewares retailer evaluating September 2026. Its approved exports contain the following store summaries. Gross sales are before the separately recorded discounts and returns; sales tax is excluded throughout.
That treatment of returns and sales tax is consistent with the Census Bureau's retail sales definition, which deducts customer refunds and allowances and excludes sales taxes collected for tax agencies.
| Store | Gross sales (USD) | Returns (USD) | Discounts (USD) | Net sales (USD) | COGS (USD) | Gross profit (USD) | Gross margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North | 120,000 | 6,000 | 4,000 | 110,000 | 66,000 | 44,000 | 40.00% |
| South | 90,000 | 3,000 | 2,000 | 85,000 | 55,250 | 29,750 | 35.00% |
| Total | 210,000 | 9,000 | 6,000 | 195,000 | 121,250 | 73,750 | 37.82% |
Net sales = Gross sales − Returns − Discounts
Gross profit = Net sales − Cost of goods sold
Gross margin = Gross profit / Net sales
The checks are visible: 210,000 − 9,000 − 6,000 = 195,000, and 195,000 − 121,250 = 73,750. Total margin is 73,750 / 195,000 = 37.82%, rounded to two decimal places. The unweighted store average, (40% + 35%) / 2 = 37.50%, fails because the stores have different sales denominators.
Require the same outcome after filtering and regrouping. A store subtotal must tie back to the contributing transaction lines. Returns must remain attached to the chosen reporting period and store policy. For a separate evaluation of discount and price questions, use pricing analytics in retail.
Use a single SKU with the same selling unit in both stores. Here, units sold are net of resaleable customer returns, and there are no transfers, adjustments or damaged goods.
| Store | Opening units | Received units | Net units sold | Closing units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North | 600 | 300 | 400 | 500 |
| South | 400 | 200 | 250 | 350 |
| Total | 1,000 | 500 | 650 | 850 |
Opening stock plus receipts less net sales units equals closing stock: 1,000 + 500 − 650 = 850. In real exports, add explicit columns for transfers, write-offs and other adjustments. Do not force an unexplained difference into sales.
Keep quantity reconciliation separate from cost valuation. The IRS cost-of-goods-sold guidance explains the opening inventory, purchases and ending inventory bridge used to determine merchandise cost. It does not make a unit movement balance interchangeable with an inventory dollar balance.
Store audit records add another question: whether merchandise was actually available and promotions were executed. Evaluate that separately using the retail execution analytics scorecard.
Bring a closed-period POS export, matched costs and a stock summary to Covirage; its tools compute and check the figures, and the external AI model explains the results with every figure traced to its rows. Create a free Covirage account, which takes about a minute, then set up your business and bring a sample of your own data.
See self-service analytics for the supporting business workflow.
Start with a closed period of transaction lines, return records, product costs and inventory movements, plus store and product reference lists. Include ordinary exceptions such as voids and missing product codes. A tidy summary alone will not show how an option handles your real reporting work.
Choose after defining the recurring questions and the person responsible for maintaining the work. A spreadsheet may suit a bounded comparison. A recurring reporting approach needs agreed measures and ownership. Test both against the same exports rather than assuming one category will always be better.
Tie net sales to the approved sales report, match cost of goods sold to the same merchandise and period, and reconcile opening stock through movements to closing stock. Then select a reported difference and follow its contributing rows back to the original export.
Store, product, sales and stock questions can often be evaluated without customer identifiers. Customer retention questions need an appropriate customer key and coverage rules. Keep the evaluation limited to fields needed for the stated business question, and record which transactions cannot be matched.