How we source what we publish.
An editorial methodology is the stated standard a publisher applies to its own factual claims — where figures come from, how they are labelled, when they were last checked, and what happens when one turns out to be wrong. This page is ours.
It exists because we failed this standard first. Our comparison pages once carried competitor cost ranges we could not trace to any source, and they disagreed with each other. Removing them was straightforward. Working out the rule that would have stopped them shipping took considerably longer — and that rule set is what follows.
This is the standard we hold ourselves to. It is not a claim that every page already meets it — we are still working older material up to it, and we would rather say so than claim a finish line we have not reached. Where you find something on this site that falls short of the rules below, that is a defect, and we want to hear about it.
Six rules, written to be checkable.
A standard nobody can audit is decoration, so each rule below names the thing you can go and look at. The comparison cluster is where you will see them applied most consistently today.
A figure gets one of three labels, or it does not ship
When we publish a number, it should be one of three things: a published figure with its source named, a first-party observation stated as ours, or a directional estimate labelled as a planning guardrail. That is the bar we hold new and revised material to, and it is the bar we are bringing older material up to. It is a standard, not a boast about total coverage — so if you find a figure here that carries none of those three labels, treat it as a defect and tell us.
On what we could not verify, we are the subject of the sentence
The house rule is to write "we did not find a published implementation price for this vendor" rather than "this vendor publishes no pricing." The difference is not cosmetic: the second asserts a fact about someone else that we are not in a position to know, and it survives rewording — moving the hedge around leaves the vendor as the grammatical subject. This is the rule we apply and the one we most often catch ourselves breaking.
Comparison pages carry a visible review date
Each page in our comparison cluster states when it was last reviewed — currently August 2026 — and that date is set from a single constant in our codebase, so the visible stamps move together rather than one page at a time. The date is written deliberately and never generated at build time. A date that refreshes itself on every deploy claims a review that nobody performed.
We publish no licence or implementation cost figure for any vendor we compare against
Earlier versions of our comparison pages carried dollar ranges for competitor implementations. The ranges had no traceable origin and they contradicted each other across our own site, so they were removed rather than relabelled as estimates. We did not find published implementation pricing from the vendors we checked, or in the public procurement records we searched. If a comparison page anywhere quotes you a competitor range, ask where the number came from.
The Benchmark Pack ranges are directional, and say so next to the bands
The ranges in our Benchmark Pack are drawn from published retail benchmarks, practitioner conversations, and our own observations across apparel brands. They are planning guardrails rather than the output of a controlled study, and the pack states that plainly next to the bands. Your category, customer, and brand equity all move the right band up or down, so treat a range as a sanity check on a plan rather than a number to defend.
Corrections are routed, not buried
Each comparison page carries a correction route, and corrections from a named vendor’s employees, partners, and customers are explicitly welcome. When a correction lands we check it against the source and change the page; when we re-review the comparison set, the review date moves with it. This page is the standing route for anything else on the site.
What our comparisons leave out, and why.
An omission is a claim too. Where a number is missing from a comparison page, it is missing for a reason, and these are the reasons.
Licence and implementation costs for vendors we compare against
We could not trace them to a published source, so we do not restate them.
Precision we do not have
A range we believe only to within a wide band is published as a wide band, not narrowed to look authoritative.
Hands-on verdicts on software we have not run
Where we compare a vendor product, we are reading their material rather than running it — and those pages say so.
A neutral pose we are not entitled to
We sell planning software and we compare it to competitors. Each page in our comparison cluster states that outright.
If we got something wrong, we would rather hear it from you.
Vendor capability moves quickly, our reading of a competitor’s material can be out of date, and we make ordinary mistakes. If a figure on this site is unlabelled, unsourced, or simply wrong, tell us. We check it against the source and correct the page — and where we cannot substantiate the original claim, we remove it rather than soften the wording around it.
The most consequential application of that rule so far: a benchmark report published here described a survey of apparel planning professionals that was never conducted. It was withdrawn in August 2026 rather than relabelled, and replaced by a review of research other people actually published, where every figure carries the population it was measured on.
Corrections are welcome from anyone — including employees, partners, and customers of the vendors named on our comparison pages. Tell us what is wrong and what it should say, and point us at the source if you have one.
Report an Inaccuracy →Questions about how this site is written
Is this a vendor-authored site?
Yes. RetailNorthstar sells merchandising planning software, and every comparison on this site is written by us. Our comparison pages state that outright rather than implying a neutrality we do not have. The standard on this page exists to make a vendor-authored comparison checkable — dated, sourced, and correctable — not to pretend it is independent research. Read our comparisons alongside vendor material, not instead of it.
Why will you not publish a cost comparison against other vendors?
Because we could not source one. We searched vendor sites and public procurement records, including a public-sector audit report covering a deployment in this category, and did not find published licence or implementation pricing for the vendors we compare against. Our earlier comparison pages carried dollar ranges anyway; those ranges had no traceable origin and disagreed with each other across our own site, so we removed them rather than relabel them as estimates.
What does "directional" mean on a benchmark range?
It means the band is a planning guardrail rather than a measured result. The ranges in our Benchmark Pack draw on published retail benchmarks, conversations with operators, and our own observations across apparel brands — not on a controlled study with a defined sample, and the pack says so next to the bands. Use them to sanity-check a plan, not to defend a number in a board meeting. Category, customer, and brand equity all shift where the right band sits.
How is the review date on a comparison page decided?
It is set from a single constant in our codebase and currently reads August 2026. When we re-review the comparison cluster that constant changes and every page's visible stamp moves together, so one page cannot quietly drift a year behind the others. We write the date deliberately rather than generating it at build time, because a date that refreshes itself on every deploy would claim a review nobody performed.
I think something on this site is wrong. What happens if I report it?
Tell us through the contact page and we will check it against the source. If it is wrong we correct the page; if we cannot substantiate the original claim, we remove it rather than soften it. Corrections are welcome from anyone, including employees, partners, and customers of the vendors named on our comparison pages.
Check the claims, then check the product.
Our comparison pages tell you where we fit and where we do not. A walkthrough is where you find out whether that holds for your assortment.