Flex Seal is expanding its partnership with Datavations as the sealants and waterproofing brand looks to use granular retail data to improve market share, retailer negotiations and new product development. Now entering its third year, the relationship is moving beyond basic market intelligence toward a broader commercial strategy built around store-level sales data, competitive benchmarking and data-driven product decisions.

Flex Seal is expanding its multi-year partnership with Datavations, giving the consumer products brand broader access to retail intelligence as it looks to strengthen distribution, improve competitive positioning and make new product development more data-driven.

The partnership, now entering its third year, expands Datavations' data coverage across major retailers. Flex Seal plans to use the additional intelligence across two areas: improving in-store performance and making product development decisions with greater precision.

For consumer brands operating across large retail networks, the shift matters because national sales figures can conceal substantial differences between individual stores, products and markets. A product may perform strongly overall while underperforming in particular locations or price segments. Store-level data can expose those differences and give sales and marketing teams more specific evidence when negotiating with retailers.

Datavations provides commercial intelligence for home improvement manufacturers, with its platform designed to give brands visibility into retail performance at the product and store level.

Flex Seal CEO Phil Swift said the platform gives the company data and insights that can support faster decision-making during retailer discussions.

That represents a broader evolution in how consumer brands are using retail analytics. Rather than treating data as a reporting tool used after sales have occurred, companies are increasingly using granular information to influence where products are distributed, how they are positioned and which products should be developed next.

Turning Retail Data Into Sales Enablement

One of the most direct applications for Flex Seal is merchant enablement.

The company says its sales teams are incorporating Datavations insights into retailer conversations, using per-SKU and store-level sell-through data to demonstrate competitive performance.

That can provide a stronger basis for discussions around product placement, distribution and assortment. Instead of relying primarily on broad category trends or historical sales reports, sales teams can present evidence showing how individual products are performing in specific retail environments.

The distinction is important in home improvement, where shelf placement, regional demand, assortment decisions and retailer-specific purchasing behavior can significantly influence product performance.

Data can also become useful between formal Product Line Reviews, when manufacturers typically present retailers with product performance and category recommendations. Continuous access to retail intelligence allows a brand to identify emerging opportunities before the next scheduled review.

This turns commercial intelligence into an ongoing sales tool rather than an occasional planning resource.

Product Development Moves Closer to Real-Time Market Signals

Flex Seal is also applying the data to new product development, an area where poor market assumptions can result in significant investment risk.

According to the company, Datavations' intelligence provides visibility into growing categories and successful price tiers. Those signals can help Flex Seal identify opportunities where consumer demand and retail performance indicate stronger potential.

The approach also works in the opposite direction.

Data can help identify categories where investment may not be justified, potentially allowing the company to avoid spending resources on products with limited market potential.

That is an increasingly important capability as consumer brands face pressure to improve innovation efficiency. New product development requires investments in research, manufacturing, packaging, distribution and marketing. A product that looks attractive conceptually may still struggle if the category is declining, the price point is poorly positioned or retail demand is insufficient.

Connecting product planning with actual shelf-level performance can reduce some of that uncertainty.

From Retail Analytics to Commercial Intelligence

Flex Seal's expanded relationship illustrates how retail analytics is becoming more closely integrated with commercial decision-making.

Retail media networks and digital commerce platforms have increased the amount of customer and transaction data available to brands, but manufacturers still need systems that turn those signals into actionable decisions.

That is where platforms such as Datavations compete with broader analytics and business intelligence technologies. Enterprise platforms from companies such as Salesforce, Microsoft and Adobe can provide extensive data integration and analytics capabilities, but specialized retail intelligence platforms can offer more category-specific context and workflows for manufacturers.

The competitive advantage therefore may not come simply from having more data. It comes from providing sales, merchandising and product teams with information that can be used within their existing decision-making processes.

Flex Seal's expanded retailer coverage strengthens that proposition by allowing the company to benchmark its performance across a broader retail landscape.

Data-Driven NPD Could Reshape Home Improvement Competition

The home improvement category is particularly suited to this model because products are often sold through large retail networks with substantial SKU-level variation.

For manufacturers, the ability to compare performance by retailer, store, category, price tier and product can help reveal where growth is actually occurring.

That could influence everything from product specifications and pricing to packaging, distribution and promotional strategy.

The development also points to a wider trend in B2B MarTech: marketing intelligence is increasingly moving closer to revenue and product decisions.

Traditional marketing analytics often focused on campaign performance, engagement and customer acquisition. Modern commercial intelligence can extend further into assortment planning, retailer negotiations and product investment.

For Flex Seal, the expanded Datavations partnership suggests the company sees retail data as part of its broader growth infrastructure rather than simply a market research resource.

The next test will be whether those insights translate into measurable market share gains, stronger retailer relationships and a more efficient innovation pipeline.

Market Landscape

Consumer product manufacturers are operating in a retail environment where competition is increasingly shaped by granular sales data, retailer-specific performance and rapidly changing consumer demand.

The growth of retail media networks has further increased the importance of first-party and transaction-level data. Brands can now access more information about how products perform across digital and physical retail environments, creating opportunities for more precise targeting and measurement.

For home improvement manufacturers, however, the challenge extends beyond digital advertising. Physical shelf placement, distribution, pricing and assortment remain critical commercial variables.

That makes specialized retail intelligence valuable because it connects data to the decisions that determine whether products gain or lose distribution.

Strategic Outlook

Flex Seal's expanded partnership with Datavations reflects a broader movement toward data-driven commercial operations in consumer products.

The strongest use cases extend beyond retrospective reporting. Retail data can help sales teams prepare for retailer meetings, product teams prioritize innovation and executives determine where capital should be deployed.

As retailers generate increasingly detailed performance data, manufacturers that can operationalize those signals quickly may gain an advantage over competitors relying on periodic market research or aggregated category reports.

For Flex Seal, the strategic opportunity is to make that intelligence part of the company's operating rhythm—from retailer negotiations to product development and portfolio investment.

Top Insights

• Flex Seal is expanding retail data coverage with Datavations to improve store-level competitive analysis, retailer negotiations and distribution decisions.
• Per-SKU sell-through intelligence gives Flex Seal sales teams stronger evidence for product placement, assortment and distribution discussions with major retailers.
• Datavations data is also informing new product development by identifying growth categories, successful price tiers and areas where investment may be unnecessary.
• The partnership demonstrates how specialized retail intelligence is moving beyond reporting toward commercial decisions involving sales, merchandising and product strategy.
• Broader retailer coverage could help Flex Seal benchmark performance more precisely and build a more capital-efficient innovation pipeline.

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