Areas where micro-merchandising helps retailers:
What is micro-merchandising?
In simplest terms, micro-merchandising is the process of ensuring that every retail location and channel carries an assortment matched to their local demand.
This is very impactful because every location has its own geo-demographic profile, including:
- Weather
- Seasonality
- Income levels
- Education levels
- Ages
- Cultural backgrounds
These are all factors that impact spending habits and preferences. When retailers bring the same assortment to every location, they face overstock and lost sales at the same time – as some products that do well in one location may sit unsold in another.
Hard Rock International- Customer Story
Danny Leadbeater, Sr. Director of Planning & Allocation
Retalon rose above everyone else with the science behind their forecast. We were able to trust the forecast they came up with 99.9% of the time.
Benefits of micro-merchandising
By building location-specific assortment, retailers will see…
Increased Sales
Minimize product cannibalization and ensure locally popular products are always in stock.
Decreased Inventories
Only allocate inventory that is likely to sell in any given location and eliminate unnecessary stock.
Reduced Markdowns
Stocking more location-specific inventory ensures that fewer items will need to go on markdown.
Higher Inventory Turns
Maximize availability of the top-selling products in every location, and minimize deadstock.
Maximum GMROI
Higher sales at lower inventory costs will improve your overall margins
Delighted Customers
Ensure your customers can find what they want, when they want it, and where they want it
Get a micro-merchandising demo.
How AI makes micro-merchandising possible
Micro-merchandising isn’t just an interesting theory. Through the power of retail AI, it has become a reality.
Accurate Demand Prediction
AI can account for dozens of factors (pricing, seasonality, cannibalization, etc.) and calculate demand on the fly for every SKU at every location.
Dynamic Clustering
AI can help you create store and product clusters using hard data, as well as automatically adjust them as new data comes in.
Learning Your Business
With the help of machine learning and simple business rules, micro-merchandising AI can learn your unique business and its constraints.
Simons – Customer Story
Gary Craig, VP, Information Technology
Retalon has given us the ability to reduce the time we spend on replenishment and automate it. We're getting the right product at the right store at the right time without much buyer involvement.
Improve customer service levels and your bottom line at the same time
With massive changes coming to the economy and consumer behavior, it’s more important than ever to keep your customers happy while optimizing your margins. One can’t come at the cost of the other.
This is what makes micro-merchandising so powerful.
By truly accounting (and optimizing) for the geo-demographic differences within your customer base, you can:
- Eliminate waste
- Reduce operational costs
- Maintain high in-stock percentages
Micro-merchandising allows you to bring your products closer to the people that want them – without making any changes to your supply chain.
See the power of micro-merchandising in action. Book your demo today.
