Out-of-stock, poorly timed inventory levels and other lost sales opportunities present a problem for retailers.

They frustrate consumers and cost retailers and consumer product companies.

A growing group of companies are targeting this problem. Companies can create a highly sophisticated picture of what’s happening at every step of a product’s journey to the consumer purchase by harnessing the store-level sales data that retailers make available to suppliers and incorporating analysis and other relevant information like weather patterns.

The promise of demand data analytics – the catch-all phrase for such services – is that a better understanding of how, why and when people buy coupled with more knowledge of the supply chain and store-level execution will help stores stay stocked with the right stuff at the right time.

TrueDemand is one of the companies hoping to capitalize on the situation and has established a Bentonville office to better serve its growing Wal-Mart supplier clientele.

The company created software that takes Retail Link data, the sales data that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. provides to its suppliers, and analyzes it on a daily basis. Then, it creates company-specific, daily reports that predict out-of-stocks and prioritize actions at the store level to help prevent them.

Shiloh Software has become a market leader of data mining tools. It takes information from Retail Link and integrates data from a number of other syndicated data providers like NPD Group Inc. and ACNielsen, and other information like weather forecasts, U.S. Census Bureau data and store-level traits like whether it’s by a university or in a largely Hispanic community.

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