Global sportswear brand Nike has acquired Celect, a retail predictive analytics and demand sensing firm based in Boston.
Founded in 2013, Celect holds an intellectual property portfolio across data science and software engineering. Its cloud-based analytics platform is designed to help retailers better predict and meet inventory needs across channels through hyper-local demand predictions.
Celect says it works to “increase full-price sell-through, reduce out-of-stocks and decrease markdowns“, Crunchbase reports.
Celect’s data science expertise is expected to support Nike’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategy, Consumer Direct Offense, which aims to better serve consumers personally at a global scale.
“With the acquisition of Celect, Nike greatly accelerates our digital advantage by adding a platform developed by world-class data scientists,” commented Eric Sprunk, Nike’s chief operating officer.
“As demand for our product grows, we must be insight-driven, data-optimised and hyper-focused on consumer behaviour. This is how we serve consumers more personally at scale.”
Celect will be integrated into Nike’s global operations team, and its co-founders will continue as tenured professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, consulting with Nike on an ongoing basis.
The acquisition comes after Nike acquired data analytics firm Zodiac last year to enhance its consumer data and analytics capabilities.
The sportswear giant is continuing to build its direct-to-consumer sales.
In the 2018 fiscal year almost a third (29%) of its global sales came through its DTC division, Nike Direct, which operates both online and through a network of owned stores. And although the wholesale business still dominates, direct channels are posting far greater growth, Warc reports.
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