How Data Scientists Are Helping Retailers Predict Purchases and Returns

Despite recent blows to the footwear industry, there's ample reason to be hopeful with cutting-edge technology. "We're living in amazing times where new innovations coming out of research in these fields is capturing people's imaginations. And those innovations will be realities in the not-too-distant future," said Acharya. "Today, we're creating machine-learning algorithms to help retailers incorporate all these sources of data and solve new business challenges." He pointed to returns forecasting -- and how data science can help -- as one example.