CBA to Initiate CROSS:SCAN Data Collection Service
The Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) is initiating a new data service called CROSS:SCAN (Christian Retail Official Sales Statistics) that will allow hundreds of stores in the Christian Retail Channel to access collective sales reports from the service’s members.
The data that CROSS:SCAN generates will equip Christian retailers to work more effectively with Christian product suppliers to improve supply-chain efficiencies and develop channel-management strategies, according to a statement by CBA.
“CROSS:SCAN will provide retail intelligence for intelligent retailers that understand the value of combining their data with Christian stores nationwide to better understand and manage inventories, sell more, and be the best trading partners for suppliers,” says Bill Anderson, president of the CBA, which is the trade association for the Christian Retail Channel. “In our close work with retail leadership across the channel, including chains, franchises, marketing groups, and independents, our members have consistently expressed a need for broader collection, better interpretation, and more controlled usage of sales data from across the channel.”
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“Many of our members have told us that CBA is the retail organization best suited to securely collect this data channel-wide and provide back to them the foundational reports they need, in a time and format that fits the unique needs of retail,” he continues. “So we have developed the infrastructure of personnel and technology to offer a secure environment via the Internet for delivery of data and have negotiated agreements with retail organizations so that we can begin data collection for the important fourth quarter.”
According to Anderson, this unprecedented collaboration reveals the increasing sophistication of the channel.
“Retailers have recognized that they need to work together as they compete against other channels, and they want to better manage their collective assets. The sales data they generate is one of those assets,” said Anderson. “Our stores intend to increase their sales. This effort demonstrates to suppliers that Christian retailers are committed to becoming a better-informed and more efficient channel with a heightened ownership of their future success. Our retailers believe the intelligence CROSS:SCAN provides will fit a retailer’s data needs and will better equip them to work with their suppliers in developing channel-management strategies that are win-win.”
CROSS:SCAN will collect sales data for books, Bibles, music, videos, and kids products by SKU every Monday from participating stores for the previous Sunday-Saturday. Participating stores will have secure access to the CROSS:SCAN reports, on Wednesdays via the Internet, reflecting the previous week’s sales across the country in Christian retail. Retailers will not have access to store specific or group-specific information, but only a fully aggregate picture that will show what products are moving, better equipping them for inventory decision making, according to CBA. Contracts allowing suppliers to have exclusive access to the aggregated sales data of their own products are under development.
To sign up to submit data and receive reports from CROSS:SCAN, Christian stores will be able to download a copy of the contract from CBA’s Web site, sign it, and send it in. The $500 annual fee will be waived for CBA member stores. Independent stores that are members of groups such as Covenant, Logos, Munce, and Parable will need to sign a contract with CBA to have access to the CROSS:SCAN reports.
CBA has already received commitments to CROSS:SCAN via signed contracts from the Association of Logos Bookstores, Berean Christian Stores, Covenant Marketing Group, Lemstone Christian Stores, LifeWay Christian Stores, and Mardel Christian & Education Supply, and has contracts in process with others, including Family Christian Stores, and the Munce Group.
“As the leadership organization for Christian retailers, we have reengineered ourselves to provide highly valued business solutions,” explains Anderson. “So as we listened to the concerns of our members in regard to data collection and their expressed desire that CBA provide this solution to a critical need, we carefully investigated if this is something we could do. Once we determined that we could do it, our members affirmed that we should do it, and so we will do it.”
For more information, log on to www.cbaonline.org or call (800) 252-1950.
