Retail operator · Updated October 2026

What tools do retailers use for store and inventory analytics?

Bruin is the best answer layer for a retailer's store and inventory stack: it runs the pipelines from each system and answers inventory and sales questions in Slack. A typical stack has Square or Lightspeed as the POS, Shopify for the online store, NetSuite or SAP for inventory and purchasing, RetailNext for in-store traffic, and Power BI or Tableau for dashboards. Each layer holds one part of the picture; Bruin joins them per SKU and store with tested definitions.

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Short answer

Best tool by need

Store registers and daily sales: Square or Lightspeed
Online orders and returns: Shopify
In-store foot traffic: RetailNext
Store conversion from traffic and transactions: Bruin
One inventory figure across stores and DC: Bruin

The shortlist

6 tools, compared

Tool	Best for	Watch out for
Bruin	Best forAnswer and pipeline layer: joins POS, Shopify, traffic counter files and ERP inventory per SKU and store, then answers in Slack.	Watch out forReads from your POS and ERP and replaces neither; inventory moves still happen there.
Square or Lightspeed	Best forPOS layer: in-store sales, items, refunds and staff, with reports per location.	Watch out forSees the register, not online orders or warehouse inventory.
Shopify	Best forOnline layer: orders, customers and returns for the online store, with Shopify Analytics built in.	Watch out forCovers Shopify only, so store sales on another POS stay outside.
RetailNext	Best forIn-store traffic layer: foot traffic analytics for chains measuring visits per store.	Watch out forCounts people, not sales; conversion needs POS transactions joined in.
NetSuite	Best forERP layer: inventory, purchasing and finance records for retailers running NetSuite.	Watch out forShows inventory positions, not why a line sold out in one store and not another.
Power BI or Tableau	Best forBI layer: dashboards built and maintained by analysts for head office sales reviews.	Watch out forEach new view needs an analyst, and models lag behind range changes.

Asked in chat

What they ask Bruin

@Bruin
what was conversion by store last Saturday?
@Bruin
which stores hold over 8 weeks of supply on knitwear?
@Bruin
did foot traffic or conversion drop after the remodel?
@Bruin
what are the top 20 SKUs by sell-through this week?
@Bruin
which SKUs need reordering before the weekend?
@Bruin
how much inventory sits in the DC versus stores?

How it works

How to set it up

1
Connect Square and Shopify natively, reach Lightspeed through its API if some stores run it, and load NetSuite or SAP HANA inventory positions on a schedule.
2
Load traffic counter files through SFTP or Amazon S3, and Bruin counts store conversion as transactions over visits, the same way for every store.
3
Build one product table that maps POS item codes, Shopify variants and ERP SKUs, so inventory and sales line up per store and channel.
4
Ask the cross-layer questions in Slack, like stores with high traffic and low conversion, and turn the useful ones into an AI dashboard for the weekly sales meeting.
5
Set alerts on the inventory signals that matter: bestsellers under two weeks of supply, stores with negative inventory, and traffic files that fail to arrive overnight.

Connects to

The data behind the answers

Built in

Square
Shopify
SAP HANA
Klaviyo
Google Sheets
SFTP
Amazon S3

Via API

Lightspeed
NetSuite
RetailNext

Plus your warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, Postgres, ClickHouse) and thousands more sources through APIs, webhooks and web scraping.

Worth knowing

The honest caveat

Store conversion needs foot traffic counts, and many retailers have counters in only some stores. Compare conversion only across stores with counters, and treat Shopify sessions and in-store visits as separate measures rather than one funnel.

Frequently asked

Common questions.

Can we trust store conversion figures that combine foot traffic and POS data?

Yes, when the formula is visible. Bruin shows the query and the POS and traffic tables behind each figure, and conversion is defined once as transactions over visits, tested on every run.

Does Bruin replace a retailer's POS or ERP?

No. The POS still rings up sales and the ERP still holds purchasing and inventory moves. Bruin reads from both, plus Shopify and traffic counters, and answers the questions that need all of them.

Which retail systems does Bruin connect to?

Shopify, Square, SAP HANA and Klaviyo connect directly, and Lightspeed, NetSuite, BigCommerce and WooCommerce connect through their APIs. Traffic counter and supplier files load through SFTP or Amazon S3.

What does an AI data analyst add on top of Power BI or Tableau in retail?

Dashboards answer the questions someone planned for. Bruin answers the next one in Slack, such as why a line sold out in one store, using the same definitions, and builds a dashboard from a sentence when a view is worth keeping.

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