A family-owned business, Northern tool is the ultimate destination for hard working do-it-your selfers and professionals. The company operates 100+ retail stores in addition to its 35-year-old catalog business and online channel featuring over 40,000 products.
An established and recognized brand, Northern Tool had a strong foothold in the upper Midwest. However, with plans to expand into the South and Southeast, they needed deeper consumer insights related to these new regions prior to market entry. And while they had a well- established mail order business, the decision was made to invest in both eCommerce and bricks-and-mortar strategies as well. Despite owning valuable customer insights from their existing catalog business, Northern Tool needed to better understand the differences between their mail order, online and bricks-and-mortar customers – and if there was any interplay between them that would affect brand awareness and sales.
Northern Tool required a sales forecast model that would support and safeguard their expansion efforts while taking into account what they already knew about customers from their catalog and burgeoning ecommerce channels.
Tango’s tools help Northern Tool understand the interrelationship between ecommerce and bricks and mortar locations.
Tango helped Northern Tool identify and quantify the key variables impacting sales performance, and build a sales forecast model to make better-informed site selection decisions.
Additionally, Tango’s analysis led to an understanding of the profile differences between Northern Tool’s traditional catalog and new eCommerce customers – while also uncovering the relationship between the eCommerce and brick and mortar channels. By understanding where existing eCommerce and Mail Order customers are within the market and their channel preferences once brick and mortar locations open, Northern Tool can more strategically and confidently build out a market.