1. What is a data warehouse and why is REI building one?
A data warehouse is unique kind of a database where current and historical data about a certain group of people such as customers, is stored. Information from operational systems, such as transaction processing systems, is extracted and summarised then stored in in a data warehouse. This type of information includes records about customer interaction patens, customer purchasing history or trends and current customer records. The information in a data warehouse is used for management analysis and decision making.

REI needs data warehouse for the following benefits
• It will help REI’s management in decision making. Drawing trends about past and current customer buying patens will indicate as to which products are making the most profit and which ones require improvements.
• REI will have an integrated, companywide view of high-quality information.
The information systems department will be able to separate informational from operational systems to improve performance dramatically in managing company data.

2. What are some of the disadvantages of consumer cooperatives compared to ’traditional’ firms?
Consumer co-operatives will not make a higher profit if they happen not to have a lot of members. While traditional firm firms will make profit from a variety of customers. Prices in Consumer-operatives are owners driven while traditional firms change their prices according to demands of products. This makes price very flexible in traditional firms than in consumer co-operatives.Consumer cooperatives require a high level of organization. Because the consumers are helping to make many decisions there are more legal responsibilities for the company.

3. Describe some of the marketing strategies that REI’s data warehouse will allow them to use. Would these have been possible before the data warehouse