Retail Giant Lowe's Acquires Retail Analytics Division

US home improvement chain Lowe's Companies, Inc. has acquired the Retail Analytics platform of Mountain View, CA-based Boomerang Commerce, and will use it to bolster strategic and data-driven pricing and merchandise assortment decisions in its core retail business.

The platform processes product and pricing datasets to create insights and promote actions.

Boomerang, which was founded by Guru Hariharan in 2012, has sold Lowe's the proprietary technology and tools, but not its customer contracts and related confidential information and data. Some staff from Boomerang's Retail Analytics teams in Bangalore and the USA will join Lowe's, while Boomerang's remaining e-commerce growth automation product will operate as an independent business under the CommerceIQ.ai name, with Hariharan as CEO.

Hariharan says the transaction is the culmination of a successful relationship over the past four years. Lowe CIO Seemantini Godbole comments: 'One of the key components of our transformation here at Lowe's is to modernize our technology. Pricing and Assortment Planning have been identified as strategic areas in need of modernization. And when we find the right assets available to buy and advance our strategy, we'll do that. Adding this team and technology to our existing capabilities helps us leverage the right data quickly, effectively and successfully'.

Lowe's serves more than 18 million customers a week in the United States and Canada, and had fiscal year 2018 sales of $71.3 billion from 2,200 stores and around 300,000 associates. The firm was founded in 1946 and is based in Mooresville, NC with a web site at www.lowes.com .