Optimization Goes Social – Revionics Acquires SkuLoop

ROSEVILLE, Calif. & LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Revionics, Inc., the leading provider of End-to-End Merchandise Optimization solutions, and GIIV, Inc., owner of the SkuLoop business, the cutting edge provider of social commerce driven promotions for retailers and consumer brands, today announced that Revionics has acquired the SkuLoop business and assets from GIIV, Inc.

This acquisition extends Revionics' End-to-End Merchandise Optimization solutions with the addition of Revionics® Social Commerce, the first and only social marketing platform to deliver optimized, 1-1 incentives and rewards to targeted loyal advocates and fans, expanding loyalty and driving measurable ROI across an Omni-channel shopping episode – online, in-store, social and mobile. By infusing pre and post-transactional social demand signals into Revionics' proven science, optimization models will now have a more complete, robust and granular view of shopper behavior, driving more accurate recommendations across the merchandise continuum – product, price, promotion and place.

“While many firms will assess the value of the social Web through a brand-building lens, some will exploit its chatter to mine insights, incorporating them into differentiating tactics to gain or hold market position,” said Kevin Sterneckert, a Gartner Research Vice President. “Social network sentiment data provides significant insight into consumer behaviors and expectations relative to pricing practices. Multichannel retailers should diligently pursue an ongoing practice of listening to their consumers (sensing) to understand preferences and trends.”

Engage Where Shoppers Are

Today's shoppers are instrumented, interconnected and informed like never before. Infinite selection and immediate gratification are the future of retail. To remain relevant, retailers must build digital bridges to their customers, both physically and emotionally and engage them where they are and across the devices they use, during and in-between shopping episodes – online, in-store, mobile and social.

Revionics® Social Commerce enables a deeper, more profitable dialog between the retailer and the shopper. It empowers retailers to go beyond Omni-channel and become “Omni-now”, extending brand consistency during the shopping episode wherever and whenever the shopper wants to engage all the way to checkout whether online, mobile, or in-store. This solution uniquely allows retailers to target and motivate their most loyal, influential shoppers, turning them into vocal advocates amongst their social networks, resulting in the acquisition of new, loyal shoppers. Leveraging cutting edge social technologies and the power of optimization, the solution turns loyalty into acquisition and buzz into business, through engagement which surprises and tailor-made incentives that delight.

The Only Solution to Close the Loop

While retailers recognize that social networks are influencing shopper behavior and research shows it is becoming increasingly significant, tools to date have not been able to measure effectiveness. Revionics® Social Commerce is the only solution that closes the loop by monitoring key metrics and measuring the ROI of social simultaneously between online and in-store transactions across multiple touch points. Our science-based analytics will help retailers understand not only the last action that converted the sale, but how much each activity in the funnel contributed to the conversion. These analytics, combined with revenue attribution, provide insights into what shoppers have purchased over time, how much each touch point contributed and its influence on their peers within their social-graph. This solution takes social beyond eCommerce, extends it to the store and tracks it all the way to checkout while ensuring the shopper's loyalty benefits are fully leveraged.

“We're thrilled to have partnered with SkuLoop for our first TimeLine app,” said Michael Frank, Social Media Strategist at PacSun. “It's been effective with our audience to increase awareness and spread the word about our newest products in a way that's fun for our fan base.”

Harnessing loyalty data and vocal advocates, retailers can execute targeted 1-1 programs with a variety of incentives, which can be used separately or in combination based on strategic objectives. These programs can be leveraged through the retailer's brand across all touch points including web, mobile, Facebook, Twitter, email and paid media sources. Retailer branded programs include:

• Social Rewards – Identify, target and engage the most valuable and loyal shoppers with optimized incentives and convert them into vocal brand advocates within their social network to start driving new customer acquisition.
• Insider Events – Excite and reward loyal advocates with both special events and activities that affirm their sense of belonging and targeted promotions designed to be shared with, and consumed by friends and fans.
• Wish Lists – Increase awareness, virality and sales, while staying relevant with demographic and geographic information. Allow fans and loyal shoppers to create, share and send product wish lists to their extended networks.
• Flash Sales – Drive excitement, conversion and social amplification by providing deals of the day and multi-item flash sales optimized by shopper-segment.
• Sweepstakes – Turn passive behavior into active engagement with special offers and contests designed to generate additional interest, and increase traffic and engagement, while securing loyalty, new customer acquisition and a better understanding of where customers are engaging and what they are interested in.

“With Revionics we are now able to extend the capabilities of our cutting-edge platform and take social's impact to a new level,” said Michelle Crames, Founder and CEO of SkuLoop. “By leveraging Revionics' world-class predictive analytics and demand-based science, we can now extend our promotional incentives through optimized offers that extend our best-in-class platform to drive cross-channel, profitable customer relationships with the ability to integrate this into broader retail technologies and analytics. The promise and power of social can now be truly realized.”

Visit our web page for more information about Revionics® Social Commerce.

Predict Where Shoppers Are Headed

Social is the new demand signal that if not included in a retailer's predictive analytics, will erode a retailer's understanding of its customer. Retailers cannot maintain relevancy with a customer they do not understand and we no longer live in a world where customer loyalty is given – it has to be earned. By incorporating social demand signals into optimization, retailers have a more complete view of the customer.

With the acquisition of the SkuLoop business, Revionics can now incorporate social interactions into its merchandise demand models making them more complete and extending science and insights into the price, promotion, markdown, assortment and space recommendations for each channel – online, in-store, social and mobile. Retailers can now strategically plan and execute promotions and markdowns by optimizing across all channels and to the channel of choice. Current social and mobile campaigns are tactical and reactionary and executed in a silo. By holistically coordinating these activities and infusing them with science, retailers can deliver optimal promotions that target the most influential social consumers and maximize performance results.

“A lot of companies claim they can promote social engagement, but SkuLoop was the only one that could work within a retailer's system and go beyond ‘likes' to driving key retailer metrics including revenue and margin,” stated Marc Hafner, Revionics' President and CEO. “The SkuLoop team has a tremendous amount of social, mobile and retail expertise. We are very excited to have them join Revionics.”

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may include “forward-looking statements” intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as “will,” “potential,” “expect,” ”expected,” “estimate,” “provide,” or other words or phrases of similar import that are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Similarly, statements herein that describe Revionics' business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions, or goals also are forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, including: the ability of Revionics to successfully integrate the operations, product lines and technology acquired from GIIV, Inc. and realize additional opportunities for growth; the ability of Revionics to realize synergies in terms of growth and cost savings; the anticipated reaction by customers; general economic and business conditions; and other risks and important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this announcement, and Revionics and GIIV, Inc. undertake no obligation to update the forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances after the date on which they were made.

About Revionics, Inc.

Revionics delivers the industry's most powerful End-to-End Merchandise Optimization solution, enabling retailers of all sizes to execute a fact-based Omni-channel merchandising strategy utilizing the most comprehensive set of shopper demand signals to enhance financial performance with improved customer satisfaction. Revionics' solutions leverage advanced predictive analytics and demand-based science to ensure retailers have the right product, price, promotion, placement and space allocation for optimal results across all touch points in the Omni-channel shopping episode – online, in-store, social and mobile. Offered on a scalable, high performance Cloud-based SaaS platform, these solutions future-proof retailers from Big Data/Fast Data challenges, while providing speed-to-ROI. Over 31,000 retail locations and $95B in annual revenue across grocery, drug, building materials, convenience, general merchandise, discount, sporting goods stores and eCommerce sites optimize with Revionics' solutions. Revionics has been recognized as a Red Herring's Top 100 Americas and JMP Securities' Hot 100 Software Company. For more information, please visit www.revionics.com.

About SkuLoop

SkuLoop, which was previously owned by GIIV, Inc., is an easy-to-use suite of tools that give retailers control over powerful promotions to drive sales and acquire customers across web, mobile, and social media touch points. SkuLoop maximizes both retailer control and consumer activity – all while increasing net margin. Created by a team of retail and technology leaders with the mission of ensuring retailers' success and growth, SkuLoop was financed by some of the world's leading innovators to build on key consumer trends and adapt them to the current needs of retailers. For more information, please visit www.skuloop.com or @skuloop.