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The 27-store specialty department store chain implements a new operations solution to better maintain inventory levels across channels

David Dorf, senior director of technology strategy for Oracle Retail, says the phrase "big data" first began to gain "buzz" status around five years ago. "It has come to represent the exponential growth of data and the complexity of analyzing it," he says. He starts with what has become the generic definition for big data - volume, variety and velocity. "Retailers have always dealt with big data in the sense that they handle thousands of [products], hundreds of stores and a steady stream of transactions," he says. "What's new is the variety of data. Some of it is highly formatted transactional data, but increasingly it's coming from sources such as a Twitter stream where there is natural language that's hard to understand using systems. The other thing that has changed is the velocity. Data is coming at us at a much faster pace."

David Dorf, senior director of technology strategy for Oracle Retail, says the phrase "big data" first began to gain "buzz" status around five years ago. "It has come to represent the exponential growth of data and the complexity of analyzing it," he says. He starts with what has become the generic definition for big data - volume, variety and velocity. "Retailers have always dealt with big data in the sense that they handle thousands of [products], hundreds of stores and a steady stream of transactions," he says. "What's new is the variety of data. Some of it is highly formatted transactional data, but increasingly it's coming from sources such as a Twitter stream where there is natural language that's hard to understand using systems. The other thing that has changed is the velocity. Data is coming at us at a much faster pace."

Almost two years after an intensive e-commerce upgrade, Ulta Beauty is making steady progress toward its goal of reaching 10% of total sales via the Internet - a major milestone in the cosmetics segment.

In this cover story by editor Erin Harris, Advance Auto Parts vp of IT Geraldine Schlueter details this $5B retailer's transition to a new merchandising system and the impact on item and store performance

In this January cover story, Stores looks at Disney's new international retail stores and how the retailer is using technology to create "the best 30 minutes of a child's day." Oracle Retail applications run key store operations.