Wiland's RetailSignals: A Predictive Edge in a Fierce Retail War

NIWOT, Colo. – February 10, 2026 – In an increasingly turbulent market where customer loyalty is dwindling and acquisition costs are soaring, data intelligence firm Wiland has launched RetailSignals, a new solution aiming to give retailers a predictive edge. The platform moves beyond traditional analytics by using vast troves of real-world consumer spending data to forecast, rather than simply report on, customer behavior.

The launch comes at a critical time for the retail industry, which is grappling with what many describe as a triple threat: escalating competition, the high cost of attracting new shoppers, and a well-documented erosion of brand loyalty. Wiland’s new offering claims to provide a powerful antidote by turning massive datasets into actionable, forward-looking intelligence.

The Predictive Leap Beyond Past Performance

For years, retailers have relied on analytics that offer a rearview mirror perspective—analyzing past purchases and static demographic profiles to understand what has already happened. Wiland asserts that this retrospective approach is no longer sufficient. RetailSignals is designed to shift the paradigm from reaction to anticipation.

“Retailers don’t win by having the most data—they win by knowing what to do with it,” said Mike Gingell, CEO of Wiland, in the company's announcement. “RetailSignals helps retailers find the right customers, keep them engaged, and grow revenue by using predictive analytics to understand what shoppers are likely to do next.”

The engine behind this predictive power is what the company describes as one of the largest cooperative consumer spend databases on the market. This repository reportedly contains over $1 trillion in transaction data from more than 250 million U.S. consumers, sourced from thousands of participating brands. By analyzing these individual-level transactions and other intent signals, the platform’s machine learning models aim to identify consumers most likely to purchase specific products, predict their future spending, and understand their brand affinities with a new level of granularity.

This allows retailers to engage potential customers earlier in their journey, personalize offers more effectively, and allocate marketing budgets with greater confidence, moving from broad-stroke campaigns to precision-guided engagement.

A Lifeline for an Industry Under Pressure?

The challenges that RetailSignals purports to solve are not theoretical; they are the daily reality for retail executives. The cost of acquiring a new customer continues to be a significant drain on marketing budgets, making customer retention more crucial than ever. Yet, retaining customers has become profoundly more difficult.

Recent industry studies paint a stark picture of declining loyalty. An Emarsys report noted a 14% drop in customer loyalty among U.S. consumers between 2022 and 2023, with a further 13% decline expected in 2024. Today's empowered consumers shop across multiple channels and have little tolerance for poor experiences, with over half of shoppers reportedly willing to switch brands after just one bad interaction. This environment forces brands into a constant, expensive battle for consumer attention.

By predicting future behavior, Wiland’s platform aims to directly address these pain points. Instead of waiting for a customer to lapse, the system could flag shoppers whose spending patterns suggest they are at risk of churning, allowing for proactive retention efforts. Similarly, it can identify consumers who are actively purchasing from competitors, creating opportunities for targeted conquesting campaigns. While established data giants like Acxiom and Epsilon, and tech leaders like Salesforce, offer their own powerful analytics suites, Wiland is betting that the depth and cooperative nature of its specific transaction-level database provides a unique and more predictive foundation.

The Data Dilemma: Balancing Insight and Privacy

The promise of such granular predictive power inevitably raises questions about data privacy and ethical use. The core of RetailSignals is built on “real-world consumer spending behavior,” a phrase that highlights the tension between personalization and privacy in the modern digital economy. As consumers become more aware of how their data is used, and with regulations like the GDPR and CCPA setting new standards, any platform leveraging personal information faces intense scrutiny.

Wiland appears to be acutely aware of this challenge, emphasizing its commitment to “ethical data practices and privacy-first innovation.” The company’s public-facing policies note that it follows industry best practices and provides consumers with options to opt out of data sharing or request deletion where legally mandated. It also states that it does not collect highly sensitive information like Social Security numbers or data related to certain health conditions for marketing purposes.

However, the broader ethical challenge extends beyond legal compliance. The use of AI in marketing carries the risk of perpetuating algorithmic bias, where historical data containing societal biases could lead to discriminatory outcomes. Mitigating these risks requires a commitment to transparency, regular auditing of algorithms for fairness, and maintaining human oversight. For Wiland and its retail clients, successfully navigating this data dilemma will be as critical to their long-term success as the accuracy of their predictions. Building and maintaining consumer trust is the bedrock on which this data-driven ecosystem must be built.

From Insight to Impact: The Road Ahead

For RetailSignals to make a difference, its insights must be seamlessly integrated into a retailer's existing workflows. Wiland states the solution supports a wide range of use cases, from customer acquisition and competitive conquesting to assortment planning and media activation across various channels.

The true test will come as retailers begin to put the platform through its paces. The first major public showcase is slated for the upcoming eTail 2026 conference in Palm Springs. From February 23-26, Wiland will be at Booth #307, demonstrating the solution to an audience of senior retail leaders and digital innovators.

The conference agenda, packed with sessions on AI personalization, customer retention, and data-led growth, underscores the industry's intense focus on the very problems Wiland aims to solve. It provides the perfect stage for the company to prove that RetailSignals is more than just a powerful data engine—that it is a practical, impactful tool that can help retailers not only survive but thrive in a challenging landscape. The industry will be watching to see if this predictive intelligence can truly deliver on its promise of sustained growth.