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Causal inference analytics for multi-site retail

Find out which of your changes paid off, store by store.

Your current reports show what each store sold. A read shows how one change contributed to those sales — whether it's your loyalty program, a deal, a food program, new items, staffing or a remodel. We do this by comparing each store to a twin built from your own stores that didn't make the change.

The big chains build digital twins with cameras and sensors. Seurat builds a twin of every store from the sales data you already have.

Payoff Reads

Loyalty programs

Is our loyalty program paying for itself, or subsidizing likely buyers?

What the program actually adds to the bottom line after its discounts, store by store and offer by offer.

Deals and promotions

Did the deal make money, or just move units?

At which stores each deal made money, and at which it lost money, after the discount.

Foodservice

Is our food program winning repeat visits and bigger baskets, or just adding cost?

What the food program contributes at every store after food costs, waste and labor, and whether it builds repeat visits and bigger baskets.

Assortment and private label

Did our private label lift margin, and did new items grow the basket or just cannibalize existing items?

What your private label adds to category margin, and whether new and local items grow the basket or only cannibalize the items already on the shelf.

Self-checkout

Did self-checkout pay for itself, and where would it pay to add more self-checkout units?

Labor, rush-hour sales, basket size and shrink, read together at every store that installed it, to give you a complete view of self-checkout's contribution.

Staffing and labor

Did the extra staff and the pay raise earn back their cost through more sales at peak hours?

What added staff and pay changes earn back at every store: in sales at peak hours, in customers who come back more often, and in fewer employees quitting and less overtime.

Cameras and loss prevention

Did cameras change customer and employee behavior?

To what extent camera presence drove fewer incidents, vs. similar stores without cameras.

Remodels

Did the remodel pay back, or just make the store look new?

What each remodel adds to the bottom line, how long it takes to pay back, and which parts of it paid.

EV chargers

Are the chargers adding retail sales, or just selling electricity?

The visits and sales the chargers added, with the read set up before they open.

Something else

A price change, a fuel rebrand or a delivery partner?

Tell us what changed, and we'll tell you what a read can show.

Two stores your reports get wrong
  • A store on a busy corner can beat its peer benchmark every month while running a mediocre operation, because the location is doing the work.
  • Another store can slip 1% in the year a competitor opens nearby. Every standard metric calls that a decline. We call it the best-run site in the chain, because its twin, facing the same new competitor, lost 10%.

Both stores are illustrations.

Every read works the same way

  • Each store that made the change gets a twin: a blend of your stores that didn't make the change, weighted so the twin matches the store's weekly sales for a year or more before the change.
  • After the change, the twin shows what the store would have sold had the change not been made. The twin went through the same weather, gas prices and local events, so the delta between the store and its twin isolates the effect of the change we want to read.
  • The read checks itself before you see it. The twin has to have tracked the store closely before the change. Placebo tests then rerun the read on a made-up start date, when nothing changed, and on stores that never made the change. Both should show no effect. If either shows an effect, the read isn't working properly, and we tell you.
  • Every store gets a result: the dollar impact, with a confidence interval and a verdict in plain words.

A 75-second silent film that loops. It opens on $2.9 million a year in added inside sales for a 42-store chain, about what a 43rd store would sell, without building one. Causal inference gives every store a twin, blended from the chain's other stores, and each twin shows what a store is capable of selling and how it should perform. Causal inference also isolates and ranks what's helping and hurting sales at each store. Store 27 is up 4% on last year, but only its new pizza launch helped, adding $2,600 a week, while a new competitor nearby, a snack aisle reset and an energy drink deal cost it $900, $400 and $150 a week, compared to its expected performance, based on its twin's prediction. The film then starts with the chain's PDI weekly sales report, as forwarded, and asks whether anything stands out. Stores 13 and 14 are both down 2% on last year. Twin analysis flags Store 14: other stores like it grew 2%, and its twin predicted +1.8%, not a decline. Once that marked-up report is back, the 3 weekly reports the chain sent are deleted, on its request or on its scheduled date, and the marked-up report stays with the chain. Starting at the pump, Store 14's fuel sales held up vs. its twin, but fewer drivers came into the store: pump-to-store conversion is 2% lower, inside sales are 4% lower, or $3,550 a week, prepared food is 17% lower and drinks and snacks are 6% lower. Prepared food fell particularly fast at Store 14 from Aug 3, compared to the twin's prediction and the trend at the chain's other stores. Seurat asks the store whether anything might explain the drop, and the store manager says they never rolled out staff sandwich training there. The problem was detected by comparing category-level sales to the twin's predicted sales. A dashboard of all 42 stores then shows this was 1 of 32 findings and opportunities, worth $2.9 million a year together: launching the burrito at 18 more stores, $554,000; moving warmers next to the register, $352,000; retraining Store 14's lunch crew, $185,000; a win-back offer near competitors, $160,000; ending the energy drink deal, $125,000; and 27 more findings, $1.5 million. Throughout, a Data used strip shows which of 4 steps each scene's data comes from, with what that step includes and leaves out, and says nothing connects to the chain's systems. The end card says to get started with the weekly report you already have, and lists what Seurat uses, what to leave out and what happens to it.

HEARTLAND MARKETSLever BoardReads updated weekly
Store #217Maple & 9th, Cedar Rapids · fuel + kitchen + 2 EV chargersMeasured at 14 stores like this one. Ranked in order of opportunity for Store #217.
Store index · 0–100 · measured at 14 stores like this oneSignature item sales31Foodservice38Pump → store conversion44Attachment rate52Basket vs. chain avg58
On the board at #217$154K/yr10 levers fit this store
Recommended to start now5 leversworth $95K/yr, no capex
Read maturingWeek 3 of 8: Eliminate loyalty clutter · verdict lands in ~5 weeks
Validated at #217$4.1K/yrCold vault reset (planogram): measured $4.1K vs. the $3.4–5.1K estimate. Inside the range ✓
Ranked by value delivered × confidence. All dollar figures are incremental inside sales, not gross profit. Reads draw on stores like this one plus transported findings from beyond the chain, and each row cites the source of each finding.
#LeverWhere it's provenWorth at this storeConf.Status
1Make the signature item identical, every visitStore-to-store drift is your #1 repeat-visit riskMeasured16 matched-store readsFieldShanghai store walksSurveyn=1,200 consumers$31Kper yearAStart now
2Cut the menu to what you're great atFewer items, tighter execution, faster lineMeasured9 matched-store readsFieldFarmingdale store walk$26Kper yearBStart now
3Two-Strike winback after a second bad visitHalf the shoppers who quit a store were gone within 2 bad visitsPOS12 chains, second-miss patternSurveyn=1,200 consumers$19Kper yearBStart now
4Keep serving the entire menu until closeLate-night crowds come specifically for pizza and friesFieldWarsaw · Kraków, 2am queues3 matched-store reads under way$17Kper yearBQueued
5Eliminate loyalty clutterPump screens + door posters run 4 competing offers todayMeasured11 matched-store reads$14Kper yearALive at #217wk 3 of 8 · verdict in ~5 weeks
Ruled out for #217: measured elsewhere, doesn't pay here
—Go 24 hours at this locationWorks in nightlife zones. Maple & 9th goes quiet at 11.Measured13 stores that tried it$0skip it, save the laborARuled out

Before a read

For partners

Built for your world

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