LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Midwest retailer Thorntons has renewed its license for a customer-behavior and market-basket analytics solution, according to the technology provider.
Officials with Applied Predictive Technologies (APT), Arlington, Va., said the 180-store chain based in Louisville, Ky., renewed its license of APT’s Test & Learn for Sites, Test & Learn for Customers and Market Basket Analyzer software.
Thorntons joins convenience-store retailers such as Wawa, Wawa, Pa.; Sunoco, Philadelphia; and Maverik, North Salt Lake, Utah, in using Test & Learn software to design and analyze in-market business experiments. Test & Learn provides companies with advanced and intuitive software capability to understand if a new program works, where it works best and where there are opportunities to tailor it to maximize profitability.
“We have used APT’s Test & Learn for Sites software to evaluate and refine a range of initiatives, including our fuel-pricing strategy, remodels, foodservice offering, alternative-fuel introductions and more," said Tony Harris, president of Thorntons. "Since we initially licensed Test & Learn in 2012, it has touched nearly every facet of our business, and we continue to use test results to guide multimillion dollar investments across marketing, merchandising, labor and capital-expenditure projects.”
Thorntons used the Test & Learn for Customers software to optimize its Refreshing Rewards program. “By analyzing each of our loyalty initiatives in Test & Learn, we are able to better understand which products we should offer to which guests at what time,” Harris said. “Additionally, aggregating learnings in the software’s Loyalty Dashboard allows us to gain a more holistic picture of how Refreshing Rewards is performing, while fostering a rapid, high-volume testing culture within our organization.”
In addition to Test & Learn, Thorntons has renewed its license of APT’s Market Basket Analyzer software. APT Market Basket Analyzer is a software platform that uses transaction-level data to produce a variety of insights to help retailers make marketing and merchandising decisions.
“Having the ability to link Market Basket Analyzer to Test & Learn analyses gives us a deeper understanding of test results. For example, we can understand what else people are buying with promoted items, which types of guests are redeeming each offer and more,” Harris said.
“It has been a pleasure working with Thorntons, a leader in the convenience retail space, to institutionalize Test & Learn over the past four years," said Dean de la Peña, vice president at APT. "We are excited that Thorntons will continue to leverage APT’s product suite to fuel their data-driven decision-making.”
Founded by James Thornton in 1971, Thorntons currently operates 180 stores that provide food, beverages and fuel in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Florida.
Owned by Purchase, N.Y.-based MasterCard, APT is a cloud-based analytics software company that enables organizations to measure cause-and-effect relationships between business initiatives and outcomes to generate economic value. The software uses algorithms to analyze large amounts of data, enabling business leaders to conduct experiments and allowing them to make optimal decisions and implement business initiatives at scale. APT also offers products that support decision-making for specific business needs including transaction analysis, space planning, promotion design, category management and location selection.
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