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Starcount receives media recognition for transformative work with Marks and Spencer

Starcount has received a flurry of positive media coverage in recent weeks, as the company continues to win new business, recognised for its expertise in the science of purchase and intent.

On the 6th February, it was revealed that Starcount will be partnering with Marks and Spencer to ‘help enhance customer understanding and insight through personalisation of M&S’ loyalty and CRM programmes including M&S’s Sparks Card.’

After both Starcount and M&S made the announcement, a number of news outlets across retail and fashion reported on the story. These included Retail Gazette, Drapers, Essential Retail, The Grocer, EPR Retail News, Retail Tech Innovation Hub, Just-Style and European Supermarket Magazine. The coverage even reached as far as Spain where online news site, Modaes.es, reported M&S’ ‘alignment with a data science company’.

Can you change the prices to suit the demographic, or hold more stock of a certain sandwich? Using the data to support the store estate is immensely powerful.

In other news, the annual Enterprise Applications of the R Language (EARL) Conference, hosted by data analysis enterprise, Mango Solutions, announced that that Starcount CEO, Edwina Dunn, would be delivering the keynote speech. The conference focuses on the commercial use of the R programming language and will be held in London from the 11th to the 13th September.

Finally, Retail Week published an article that delved into retail loyalty schemes, titled ‘Is your loyalty scheme still relevant?’ The story, which analysed the various retail loyalty schemes in operation and examined what a good loyalty programme should look like, made mention of the Starcount-M&S partnership and featured substantial insight from Starcount Chief Data Scientist, Clive Humby.

Among the various themes that Humby explored was the idea that reward preferences vary from sector to sector, and when it comes to infrequently shopped outlets, it is more challenging for retailers to understand their customers: “They don’t buy the same items again, so it’s a very different game. Shoppers in this market value early access to sales, invitations to events, exclusivity and privileges.”

Humby also discussed how retailers could make better use of stores, to help better range specific stores or identify new products that should be listed: “The rent on a building is fixed, if you can make better use of it and make it more relevant to customers, you will get more out of them. Can you change the prices to suit the demographic, or hold more stock of a certain sandwich? Using the data to support the store estate is immensely powerful.”

There are a host of exciting forthcoming announcements from Starcount in the next few months as we build our business at pace and scale, helping our clients navigate and map their customers, predicting future buying behavior.