Signals · What we watch
Internal data outranks external data because it’s direct evidence of merchant behaviour, not inference about it. The most predictive signal Redbrain has is whether a merchant is paying their invoices on time. Everything else is corroboration.
The most predictive tier because it’s direct evidence, not inference. Nobody outside Redbrain has visibility into these signals. Weighted highest in the risk score.
A merchant whose payments are slipping today is a stronger signal than a merchant whose trade press is wobbly. Behaviour beats commentary.
Free, structured, legally definitive. If a winding-up petition appears here, the conversation is already over — but the smaller events (new charge, officer resignation) come weeks earlier.
UK retail-specific titles plus national business press. Trade press runs distress stories weeks before mainstream pickup. Headlines and metadata are open even on paywalled sites.
The retailer’s own front end as a live readout of operational health. Each signal weak alone, strong in combination with the others.
Healthy retailers don’t serve 500s on Black Friday. Sustained downtime or elevated error rates correlate with infrastructure cuts — an early operational tell.
Job count dropping by 50%+ over 8 weeks; senior roles disappearing; CFO/COO listings going unfilled for months. Hiring freezes precede formal trouble.
Site-wide discounts climbing past 50%, then 70%. “Everything must go” pages appearing. Old-stock clearance is normal; structural margin destruction is not.
Core SKUs sold out across categories suggests supplier credit pulls. We sample a basket of bellwether products per category, daily.
Noisiest tier. Most chatter is meaningless; the predictive signals are narrow and specific. Processed last, weighted low, but corroborative when other tiers are already firing.