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.