Walmart captures point-of-sale transactions from thousands of stores in several countries and continuously transmits these data to its massive data warehouse. Wal-Mart allows more than 3,500 suppliers to access data on their products and perform data analyses. These suppliers use the data to identify customer buying patterns at the store level. They use this information to manage local store inventory and identify new merchandising opportunities. Both Wal-Mart and its suppliers are engaged in: