Trending, down to the brand
Watch brands and classes climb and stall across independent retail by vertical, region, gender and more — and know what your customers are asking for before your rep does.
Ranked by momentum, not just volume
Independent retail · Built on real POS data
See exactly where
your store stands.
Indie Insights benchmarks your real POS data against stores genuinely like yours — your margin, your turn, your sell-through, your average order — and puts a dollar figure on every gap. No surveys, no self-reporting, no “retail averages.”
Then take what you find to owners who run stores like yours.
Learn together. Grow together. WIN together!
Free tier, no credit card. Already a member? Log in — one account covers everything here, and it’s the same login for Retail ORBIT® if you use it.
Gross Margin
Last 12 months
48.2%
Your store, women's apparel, all channels
Where you sitAbove average · 68th pctl
Top Quartile threshold51.6%
Average store45.9%
Annual opportunity$104,000
Illustrative example. Peer values are aggregate only — no store is ever named, and a benchmark is suppressed until enough stores in your group have reported.
Benchmarks that get specific
Not “retail averages.” Your margin, turn, sell‑through and AOV against stores in your vertical, your region, your size — filtered all the way down to subclass.
Every gap priced as an annual dollar opportunity
Peer groups that solve it
Take the decision that’s keeping you up — the buy, the lease, the hire, the partner — to six or eight owners who have already made it. Monthly, facilitated, confidential.
90 minutes a month with people who get it
What actually moved your door
Foot traffic, weather, holidays and your own events — the sidewalk sale, the new sign, the market next door — laid over your sales, day by day, so you can stop guessing which one worked.
Ask Indie™ reads the pattern and tells you what it means
Your plan tells you how you did.
It can’t tell you whether that was good.
You know your numbers. What you don’t know is whether a 48% margin is a win or a warning for a store your size, in your vertical, this season — and which categories your peers are selling that you never picked up.
Indie Insights closes both gaps, and prices them.
Gross margin — where you actually sit
Your vertical · your size · this season
You
48.2%
Average store
45.9%
Top quartile starts at
51.6%
Above average · 68th pctl
$104,000
a year sitting in the gap between you and the top quartile
Illustrative example. Opportunity figures are always annualised, and every peer value is an aggregate.
What's inside the portal
Market intelligence and a real community, in one place
Every member gets the community, the content and the calendar. PRO opens the full data suite down to brand level.
Benchmarking
Seven metrics scored against genuinely comparable stores, with the dollar opportunity attached to each gap.
- Quartile band, percentile and Top Quartile threshold
- Filter to vertical, gender, brand, class and region
- Chart or table — every value is reachable both ways
What's Trending
The brands and classes actually moving across independent retail right now — ranked by volume, with rank change.
- Movers & Shakers view sorts by momentum, not size
- Drill into a brand for class mix, 12-month trend and regional heat
- See what's bought alongside a brand you already carry
Traffic Flow
Foot traffic around your door, indexed and compared to the surrounding area week over week.
- 13-week trend with weather and holiday weeks annotated
- Year-over-year aligned to the holiday, not the calendar week
- Traffic vs. sales gap flagged when the two diverge
Community
Discussion groups by vertical, a searchable member directory and direct messages — moderated by people, not bots.
- Retailer Pulse: what owners are actually talking about this month
- Threads scoped to your vertical, with community-wide fallback
- A published charter everyone signs — no selling, no soliciting
Articles & Podcasts
A working library of retail articles, podcasts, guides and tools — surfaced to your vertical first.
- Worksheets, templates and calculators you can use the same day
- Like and reply on anything; good threads get promoted
- Nothing gated behind a lead form
Indie Insights Live
Monthly live sessions and webinars, with retailers co-presenting — plus the full replay if you can't make it.
- Benchmark walkthroughs with real store owners
- Upcoming events on your dashboard, never a stale list
- Recut as podcast episodes and clips
A look inside
This is what you log in to
One portal, one login. Your feed, your benchmarks, what the market is doing and the people to talk to about it — all in the same place.
Brand-level trending
Watch the ranks move,
month over month
Top brands and top classes for your vertical, with last month’s rank sitting next to this month’s so a move is impossible to miss. Green is climbing, red is slipping. This is the Footwear view — yours is scoped to whatever you sell.
▲ UPHoka went 3rd to 1st and New Balance 6th to 2nd — demand you can buy into now.
▼ DOWNBrooks and On Running both slipped — worth a look before the next order goes in.
CLASSESSandals climbing, Trail Shoes up two — the category story behind the brand moves.
The differentiator
Benchmarks built from POS data, not a survey
The numbers come straight out of members' point-of-sale systems through Retail ORBIT®. Nobody self-reports, nobody rounds up. Your peer group is defined by filters you set — vertical, gender, brand, class, channel, region — and every option that would leave you without a real comparison is greyed out before you can pick it.
- Sales change
- Sell-through %
- Gross margin
- Cash margin
- Average order value
- Units per transaction
- Turnover / weeks of stock
- Annualised $ opportunity
Your data stays yours
Every view is aggregate. No store is ever named, no group sizes are shown, and a metric is
suppressed entirely rather than shown thin when too few stores in your group have reported.
Sell-Through %
Month to date
62.4%
Partial period — peers clipped to the same window
Where you sitTop quartile · 91st pctl
Top Quartile threshold58.0%
Average store51.3%
StatusLeading — no gap to close
Illustrative example. Opportunity figures are always annualised, whatever date range you pick.
Peer Groups
Six to eight owners.
One room. Every month.
Data tells you where the gap is. A peer group is where you work out what to do about it. Small, consistent, facilitated groups of independent retail owners who meet monthly to move each other forward on real problems — inventory, staffing, cash, succession, the lot.
This isn't coaching and it isn't content. It's the honest, peer-level conversation most owners never get.
6–8Owners per group — small enough that everyone actually speaks
90 minStructured monthly session, facilitated start to finish
CuratedMatched on non-competing geography and complementary experience
Always onCommunity access between sessions, plus facilitator check-ins
Every member signs the charter
- Be real. Bring the struggles, not just the wins.
- Support, don't sell. No pitching, soliciting or recruiting.
- Absolute confidentiality. What's shared here stays here.
- Show up. On time, present, and follow through on what you take on.
- Celebrate wins. Others' as loudly as your own.
Who’s in the room
A data pool is only as good as who is in it
Indie Insights is independent specialty retail owners — the people running the stores, making the buys. Here is how the room is built.
Retail verticals
Apparel, footwear, outdoor, gift, home, toy, books, jewelry, sporting goods and more. Discussions and benchmarks are scoped to yours, with the whole community behind it when your vertical is thin.
Owners per peer group
Curated on non-competing geography and complementary experience, so nobody is sitting across from a direct competitor. A facilitator stays with the group.
Vendors selling to you
Every member signs the charter before they post: no pitching, no soliciting, absolute confidentiality. Breaches are handled by a person, not a moderation queue.
Membership
See all of it before you pay for any of it.
PRO is free for your first 7 days, fully unlocked. Peer Groups start with a free first meeting, so you sit in the room before you commit. And every tier — free included — comes with the community, the content library and the events calendar.
Community
Free
For any independent retailer who wants a room full of owners like them.
- Dashboard with your vertical's headlines
- Discussions and Retailer Pulse
- Searchable member directory and messages
- Articles, podcasts, guides and tools
- Upcoming events and Indie Insights Live
- Vertical-level trending and benchmarking
PRO
$349 / month
For owners and buyers making the buying decisions — and who need the detail behind them.
$249 / month for Management One planning clients
First 7 days free- Everything in Community, plus:
- Full benchmarking — all 7 metrics, all views
- Full What's Trending, down to brand level
- Traffic Flow foot traffic intelligence
- All 10 filters — vertical, gender, brand, class, subclass, channel, region
- Annualised dollar opportunity on every metric
Peer Group
$1,200 standard rate
$750 / month
For owners who want the data and the room.
Founding Member price — locked in for the first groups
First meeting free- Everything in PRO is included, plus:
- Monthly 90-minute facilitated peer session
- A curated group of 6–8 non-competing owners
- A facilitator who stays with your group
- Between-session access to your group
- Founding members shape how this works
Brand and product-level data requires a supported POS integration. Every plan uses one account for the whole portal — and the same login works in Retail ORBIT® for members who plan with Management One.
Brand-level data available today on
Shopify
NetSuite
Celerant
Lightspeed X
Class-level benchmarking is available on Heartland, RunIt, RICS and Lightspeed R, with brand-level support rolling out.