Author: Increff

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Business Smart Merchandising

Technology at The Heart of Fashion Retail – Embracing Sustainability

Have you ever wondered about the environmental impacts of building your wardrobe? Yes, apart from your daily commutes and lifestyle choices, how your beloved fashion pieces reach your wardrobe also impacts your overall carbon footprint. 


The fashion and retail industry is one of the largest consumers of natural resources like water, fossil fuels, fertilizers, etc. It’s also a major contributor to air, land, and soil pollution. As consumer awareness about sustainability is increasing, 67% of consumers report being more cautious of resource utilization owing to their scarcity. This has caused brands and retailers to step up to fulfill the ethical and societal obligations of their business practices.

Shifting to business strategies and practices that help brands and retailers meet the current demand while safeguarding and nurturing natural resources for the future is the need of the hour. 

Sustainability in Fashion: A Road Less Travelled

The predicament of the fashion industry is unique: Maintaining a delicate balance between supplying customers with the latest in fashion and reducing the environmental impacts of the clothing’s lifecycle. 

The retail system is inefficient due to overproduction and wastage of existing inventory. Matching supply with present and future demand is a complex task that is dependent on large volumes of legacy data.

In addition to sustainable sourcing, alternative materials, and selling to secondary markets, innovative use of technology can also have a significant impact. Retail tech is drastically improving how existing inventory is adequately utilized in the system.

A lot of these core problems can be solved during the buying and merchandising phase. Till now, the traditional methods have been unsuccessful leading to overbuying and overstocking. This creates a vicious cycle of abundant inventory getting sold at highly discounted prices before getting dumped in landfills or burnt on a large scale.

Retail Tech: Light at the End of the Tunnel

Retail tech is one of the most effective ways to build agility and sustainability into every aspect of their business. Particularly considering that this transformation combines online and offline channels.

Let’s take a look at how this gets done:

1. Sending the right inventory to the right warehouse: The guesswork of sending inventory to the right locations is eliminated by utilizing regional distribution. 

It’s common knowledge that warehouses function with limited capacity. Once inventory reaches the warehouse, its efficient storage and redistribution become of utmost importance. Retail tech has made regional utilization a reality using which retailers and brands can optimally allocate inventory in proportion to the regional demand. In addition to reducing shipment time, this contributes to a more sustainable lifestyle by reducing fuel consumption and carbon footprints.

Increased visibility of in-stock inventory leads to higher conversion rates on marketplaces, faster deliveries, and a lower return rate for retailers and brands.

2. Simultaneous exposure of inventory both offline and online: Beyond the warehouse, how do you utilize inventory you have designated for online channels? Often times sales don’t go as predicted and retailers and brands are left with large quantities of unsold inventory. New-age retail tech solutions make it possible to expose offline inventory to online sales channels, thus allowing greater exposure and ensuring no inventory is left behind.

With Increff O2O (Online to Offline) or the store fulfillment solution exposes store inventory online and enables an omnichannel fulfillment ecosystem, thus preparing the stores for the future of retail. It allows automatic order routing and splitting to the closest store location, and enables manual store hopping in case the order is not available at the designated store. This ensures fulfillment from the nearest possible location in the most optimum way. 

3. Move the right mix of products to the right store: Even with accurate pre-season demand forecasting, retailers and brands may experience situations where certain products are in demand in one location but are available in another during the in-season. No worries, retail technology can help you with this too.

Inter-store transfer feature helps prevent major inventories from going into liquidation. It is a part of merchandising where inventory is transferred between different store locations that belong to the same retailer for better exposure of inventory and subsequent improvement of sales. Through advancements in retail tech, it becomes a breeze to conduct analysis on a store style level, and inventory transfer is done from low-performance to high-performance stores. 

4. Appropriate discounting before liquidation: Every retailer and brand knows the pain of liquidating the inventory left behind in the warehouse after the season ends. It is not only a waste of their money, but it also contributes to pollution – by rotting in landfills.

By using a markdown optimization tool, retailers and brands can offer appropriate discounts at the right time, keeping sales high. It uses an advanced, data-driven algorithm to analyze high-volume data to calculate a product’s optimal discount price which maximizes sell-through and minimizes sales loss due to pricing.

The Bottom Line 

In the fast-moving world of fashion, sustainability, and technology are quickly becoming mutually inclusive. Retail tech will greatly help brands and retailers to data-driven decisions to avoid the overuse of resources and adopt more sustainable practices. 

At the heart of Increff’s operations, lies the responsibility of simplifying the complexities in supply chain operations and inventory management. Contact us to learn more about our suite of intelligent, tech-driven retail solutions.   

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Smart Merchandising

Maximize Footwear Sale; Plan, Allocate, & Replenish Accurately

India is the second largest footwear manufacturer, accounting for about 13% of footwear production globally. Due to its high population, 90% of the manufactured footwear caters to the domestic demand itself. Traditionally India has had brands like Bata and Liberty offering a wide variety of footwear to fulfill the needs of Indian consumers. As global brands like Puma, Nike, adidas, Asics, etc. establish their foothold in India, many Indian brands are also launching new designs and coming up strong.

A clear direction for planning for the upcoming season/year is needed since footwear production is a long-drawn process with heavy capital investment. It also needs to be distributed and replenished efficiently to avoid overstocking or understocking. Finally, they have to price optimally and discount accurately to keep customers coming back for more and for keeping the cash flowing.

Planning of footwear

Effective planning gives accurate direction for the entire year or season. To plan for footwear, brands need to understand what attributes or product elements are working in the market so the design team can address the trend accordingly. While Increff Merchandising Software, Pro uses up to 7 attributes to define each article, its Enterprise version drills deeper to analyze up to 70 attributes.

These attributes will support your product masters.

What should be in your product masters?

A lot of new brands are confused about what features of the product should form the attribute hierarchy. While doing planning, you need to understand what your brand is known for and create an article master accordingly.

If you are a sports shoe brand, the type of your soles and the material of your insoles can be the main components. While if you are a fashion footwear brand, you might want to analyze factors like heel height, uppers style, or embellishment. While doing planning, other than the main category and subcategory, it is ideal to stick to 2 to 3 core attributes. When you plan based on past data, going into too many attributes in granularity can only cause a headache.

Planning your size set?

Footwear and innerwear are categories where sizes cannot be tinkered with. Uncomfortable shoes may lead to physical ailment which is the last thing you want your customers to talk about.

Analysis of past sales gives insights into what pivotal sizes can be produced in larger quantities. Most footwear brands do not like to eliminate any sizes and keep an option open to clients. However, analytics will help determine the ratios at which they need to be produced. Ratios can be extrapolated to overall buy.

Read: Assortment planning for profitable retailing

Selling online

The online shoe market is ever-growing. Globally, with a CAGR of 7.25%, it is predicted to leap up to US$ 543.90 billion by 2030. This helps the brand to reach tier 2 and tier 3 cities, and experiment with the market fit. Analyzing the conversion rate based on views and average ticket value helps automate digital marketing.

Another huge problem for online commerce is the unusually high return rates. Tracking the return reasons and taking calls on top returned styles can help bring this rate down. Ideally, the return rate should stay in the 5-10% range if you are selling online and 1-3% for offline stores.

Most footwear brands face return issues due to size mismatch or material discomfort. To combat size issues, producing half sizes in minimal quantities will give size flexibility to customers. Material quality can be upgraded in coalition with your manufacturer. If you are a brand that has an in-house production facility, allow your design team to do some material experiments.

Conclusion

The Indian footwear industry has moved from a sophisticated low-cost to a medium and world-class market supplier. Modern & State-of-the-art retail technologies are being adopted to suit the exact international requirements and standards. In collaboration with international online retailers like Amazon and Walmart, multiple private footwear brands have joined cross-border e-commerce and progressed on the path toward digital transformation. As the footwear market is expected to grow exponentially, accurate demand analysis and a check on the cost of production are needed to propel it.

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Technology

Upgrading delivery experience – Going beyond warehouses/ distribution centers

Until recently people hailed 5-day delivery as quick. Nowadays, consumers expect delivery to take no longer than 24 – 48 hours. With speed and agility spearheading order fulfillment, the time between booking an order and receiving it is decreasing. Retailers with digital presence have felt the need for a better supply chain to manage customer expectations. 

Going by the statistics, an incompetent order fulfillment strategy can lead to business loss. Thus, it’s imperative for retailers and brands to bring their A-game.

E-commerce order fulfillment process: Examining the current situation

E-commerce order fulfillment was mostly carried out by centrally located warehouses or distribution centers far from customer locations. Since inventory allocation was solely based on rough estimates determined by past years’ sales patterns. Depending on where the fulfillment center is, shipping costs and delivery times would vary.

Let’s expand on them in detail.  

Loopholes in this strategy

When fragmented data from multiple distribution centers and warehouses is combined, managing the high volume without an ideal omnichannel order management strategy becomes a mammoth task.

The current system has the following problems:


1. Inefficient warehouse management: Warehouses are intricate ecosystems where multiple processes work simultaneously. An improperly managed warehouse leads to inaccurate inventory information, inefficient space utilization, and mismanaged picking procedures, all impacting business productivity and employee efficiency at various levels.

2. Mismanagement of peak sales: Incorrectly assigned inventory is a surefire way to stockouts – every retailer’s nightmare. Its inefficient tracking and management lead to stockouts that not only impact profitability and sales but also cause customer dissatisfaction and reduce loyalty.

3. Delayed delivery: Longer delivery times have now become the quickest way to lose customer trust. Especially if they have paid extra for expedited shipping, they expect delivery within the promised timeframe. Delayed order fulfillment is often due to inefficient warehouse operations, inventory mismanagement, and inaccurate demand analysis.

4. High fulfillment costs: In order to meet the strict delivery timelines, brands opt for faster shipping options. Items when shipped from a centralized location far from customers, take longer to reach and cost more. High shipping and logistics cost reduces profit margins and overall brand revenue.

5. Lost sales opportunities: Inaccurate demand assessment leads to improper inventory distribution, overstocking, and stockout scenarios. Without timely replacement or replenishment, brands lose sales and revenue. If styles are available in stores but not exposed to online sales channels, their visibility reduces thus impacting total turnaround time and increasing chances of markdowns. 

Using an omnichannel approach to enable faster order fulfillment

Growth in e-commerce and the need for instant gratification have met with unexpected challenges. Such bottlenecks in the supply chain prevent brands from reaching their full growth potential hence it’s critical to address them.

Increff omnichannel order management and merchandising solutions are designed to extend efficiency and visibility across all retail sales channels. 
Let’s see how they can up your delivery game:

1. Boosting warehousing efficiency – Increff WMS is a web-based multi-channel order management system that provides a single view of inventory across all marketplaces with real-time order inventory sync. Inventory serialization enables digitization and automation to achieve 100% First-Time-Right operations. Order priority-wise picklist generation and optimized pick paths ensure ~99.9% order fulfillment within the promise-to-ship time. 

2. Managing peak sales- Robust tech stack and real-time inventory order sync ensure complete synergy between the marketplace and warehouse. It prevents chances of excess order cancellations which lead to customer distrust. The auto-replenishment feature sends prompts when a fast-selling stock is getting exhausted so it can be reordered on time to avoid stockouts.

3. Enabling 24-48 hrs delivery – By conducting pin code level demand analysis with Increff Merchandising Software regional utilization module, brands can distribute inventory according to existing demand. This brings inventory closer to the customer and ensures faster order fulfillment from the nearest location. 
4. Lower fulfillment costs – With Increff Cloud Warehousing service, brands can outsource inventory and order management to experts to reduce CapEx and improve operational efficiency.

5. Enable Omnichannel retailing– Increff O2O (Offline to Online) allows brands to expose store inventory to online sales channels for better visibility and faster order fulfillment from stores. 

Omnichannel order fulfillment for the win 
Undoubtedly, an omnichannel fulfillment system can augment and enhance your sales and revenue. In this day and age, where time equals money, businesses need to optimize their processes to enhance productivity. Intrigued to know how our suite of retail tech solutions can empower your business? Head to our website. 

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Business Smart Merchandising

Challenges in Kidswear Merchandising – Solve with Increff Merchandising Software

One of the fastest-growing retail categories in the last few years is Children and Baby Apparel. According to Fortune Business Insights, a global market research firm, the baby apparel market is projected to reach USD 82.54 billion by 2027. Hence, it becomes critical for brands catering to this segment, or looking to expand offerings, to logically access customer demands and stock accurately.

Using appropriate demand forecasting software and merchandising techniques can be an innovative and profitable experience. 

What merchandising fundamentals are required of you? What is the best way to display children’s clothing in your shop? How can you successfully implement this category? etc. This blog helps you address these questions effectively.

Determine your product and size range

Choose the right product line depending on the target market you wish to merchandise for. Is this your primary category, or an optional category that only impulsively interests your customers?

I. Define your categories and sub-categories.

As the primary step it is important to determine the category you wish to cater to, will it be apparel or non-apparel? If you choose apparel, you need to segment it into sub-categories further, for example, tops, bottoms, and sets, and then dive deep within sub-categories, adding new levels of attributes, for example, under tops: T-shirt, shirt.

II. Define the age group.

In children (Boys and Girls), there are 4 age groups generally.

New-born = 0-1 years, where the baby’s growth is rapid and multiple products might fit in here. Probable sizes: New-born, 0-3M, 3-6M, 6-9M, 9-12M (M=Months)

Babies = 1 – 3 years, decent baby growth, still multiple products might fit in. Probable sizes: 12-18M, 18-24M, 24-36M (M = Months)

Kids = 3-10 years can be explored with more fashionable products. Probable sizes: 3-4Y, 5-6Y, 7-8Y, 9-10Y (Y= Years)

Youth = 11-15 years old = Generic products Probable sizes: 11-12Y, 13-14Y, 15-16Y (Y= Years)

Seasonality is a consideration when establishing your clothesline for kids. If your products are seasonal, you’ll need to modify your product selection frequently, back-to-school and summer vacations are common examples.

In-store merchandising

To attract kids, it is essential to keep the visuals engaging and vibrant, as you want them to appeal to kids, entering the store, as much as you want them to appeal to their parents. Hence, communication between the buying department, space planners, and the in-store merchandising team is vital to success.

The collection must utilize the given space effectively to showcase the maximum product range. Based on each collection launched, Increff Merchandising Software provides an opportunity to give story-wise displays. It intakes your planogram as a constraint, and past performances while doing allocation so as to not exceed the space availability and intelligently allocate and replenish the desired styles. Regular replenishments and reordering must be done throughout the season to save the business from missing out on any potential sales opportunity.

Since for every new season advanced planning is necessary, retailers must become familiar with the appropriate purchase cycles. It helps brands streamline their supply chain and avoid logistical losses. Analytical decision-making tools such as Increff Merchandising Software can forecast appropriate buy numbers based on the available sale data and demand.

During the end of the season, the stock that has not received good sales can be moved out. You could advertise discounts to entice shoppers to buy. Discounting needs to be done judiciously to avoid the margins taking a huge hit.

Growth in Kidswear

To grow your business, you must not just look at the category, but also look a little deeper keeping the age group and gender as primary attributes.

New Born – Boys – Bottom –  Pants – Knitted Pants.

This top-bottom approach will give actual insights, that exactly which category, under which age group and gender is working well, and accordingly, you can plan to grow your business.

Categories
Smart Merchandising

Manage inventory transfers efficiently for your growing business

What is (Inter-Store Transfer) IST?

The inter-store transfer also referred to as Inter Branch Transfer, is part of the retail supply chain management where the inventory is transferred between different store locations belonging to the same retailer. It is usually carried out for a single, or few items, to meet specific customers’ needs or for inventory consolidation to ensure optimal availability, better exposure of inventory, and subsequent improvement in sales.

 Why is it necessary?

Merchandisers allocate fresh inventory at the start of the season based on the initial demand forecasts. However, as the season approaches, the actual store performance may change leading to understocking or overstocking scenarios. Therefore, the reshuffling of in-season inventory between stores becomes critical.

When it needs to be done?

Inter Store Transfer is generally done in the season before the end of the Full price period to improve the availability of inventory by moving it between stores. Retail merchandisers prefer to achieve a higher sell-through on the inventory before it needs to be liquidated or discounted for clearance.

In situations where excess stock is present in stores with low demand, or when the fresh inventory is leaner in terms of width and depth in stores with higher demand, inter-store transfers help in improving stock availability. It helps correct the allocations done during the pre-planning period.

How Increff Merchandising Solution performs IST?

Step 1

Liquidation cleanup of data

The input sales data is cleaned for spikes or dips experienced during liquidation events. Such events tend to distort the actual demand and compel customers to purchase due to low price points. This cleanup is done for each store-brand category and the max revenue that can be cleaned in the process is used as the input. If there are no such sales, i.e., all the sales are at similar discounts, then there is no cleanup.

Step 2

Topsellers identified at Region – Brand – Category level

Step 3

Store Style Ranking

Used to determine the performance of a style in the stores that belong to the same region. This is a very important factor in IST since it determines the movement of the inventory of a style from the least-performing stores to the better-performing stores.

The differentiator in store-style ranking – Usually top styles are allocated to top stores, however, top styles may not perform well in the top stores. Merchandising Solution has a matrix approach to see which style performs in which store, rather than blindly moving top style to top stores.

Step 4

Outwarding and Inwarding of stocks

Maintaining key size availability in stores, the top stores will receive pieces as per the demand. Outwarding and inwarding is done based on the ranking of the style in that particular store. The downloadable report showing source and destination stores is available for direct implementation.

Health Correction

A healthy size set where key sizes are present is maintained. If the store-style rank is low, the stock is outwarded to consolidate at a higher-ranking store. Hence the leftover pieces from cut sizes/extreme sizes get more visibility as well.

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Regional Utilization

Implement Regional Utilization to minimize logistics expense

As same-day deliveries become a norm, faster order fulfillment is now directly related to retaining customers or losing them. Hence it is imperative for brands to stock the right styles in the ideal quantities, matching regional demand requirements, to ensure fulfillment within the timeframe committed to the customers. 

Increff Merchandising Software, Regional Utilization module is the perfect solution to help you prioritize customer preferences and stock inventory near the buyer’s location to facilitate speedy deliveries.

Learn more about this tool and how it can help you reduce logistics expenses and plan the right distribution.

Start your free trial today. Click HERE

Categories
Technology

Why is Increff WMS the right choice for your warehouse operations

Are you managing warehouse operations with systems that make you raise questions like:

  • How is my inventory placed in the warehouse and is the bin space optimally utilized?
  • How often should I plan my audits so that I can plan the warehouse shutdown accordingly?
  • Will my existing manpower be able to manage the peak season rush or do I need more hands to support the order flow?  

These red flags indicate it’s high time to replace your existing system. Bring in Increff Warehouse Management System for efficient inventory and order management.

Here’s what makes Increff WMS, the world’s simplest and most efficient cloud-based warehouse management system, the right choice for your retail business compared to any other systems.

Contact us to know more (HERE)

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Smart Merchandising Technology

Unlock the power of analytics to win more online sales opportunities

As retail e-commerce sales worldwide are expected to grow by 56 percent over the next years, reaching about 8.1 trillion dollars by 2026, retailers cannot ignore the enormous potential of an online presence. But getting into each customer’s shoes to map their journey, understand their needs, and fulfill their demands can be quite challenging.

Arm your online sales data with analytics capabilities that can help you turn raw sales data into actionable insights to facilitate quick and informed decision-making, thus helping them offer the right products at the right time for sales maximization.

Here’s how Increff Online Analytics can make this happen

Connect with us now. Sign up for free HERE.

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Smart Merchandising Technology

Planning a sustainable future with Increff Merchandising Solution

Apparel companies, be they haute couture or mass-production chains, are at all times burdened with an inventory glut. This glut eventually results in deadstock that generates 53 million tonnes of litter for landfills each year in addition to the environmental consequences of the production of the garment itself. Approximately 30% of the clothing produced each season is never sold. As much alarming as these figures look, it is expected to further lift and increase to a blaring 150 million tons by the year 2030.

The crux of the matter is how we tackle this issue effectively and efficiently from the roots. It is at this stage that we shed light on the importance of accurate planning, and how an easy tool can help merchandisers optimize this process. Introducing Increff Merchandising Software. 

By analyzing and studying past sales, revenue, discounts, size cuts, and stock-outs, Increff Merchandising Software helps determine the ideal assortment mix at a granular level. It enables merchandisers to optimize the inventory at a store-style level and produce accurate data reports that act as a foundation to study sales trends from past seasons and focus on consumer trends and bestsellers. Clients can bet on their best performers and reduce overstocking substantially by redefining the sales pattern with better clarity.

Better planning and distribution have made a difference of up to 25% less inventory holding among users of Increff Merchandising Software.

Read blog: Inter-store transfers: An inventory optimization solution

Inter-store transfers also help to move the stock around and increase sell-through. Here the available stock among stores in a region is moved to a store where it has better performance potential. This will give the styles one last chance to perform before they go into discounting and sales. Increasing the visibility of styles also gives the last chance to rectify mistakes made in planning and selling the purchased stock.

Read blog: 5 Merchandising best practices to boost store sales

The mammoth task of ensuring a sustainable future in its true essence only requires discipline and structure that we at Increff help merchandisers achieve via our Planning module. The industry has been guilt-ridden due to its major contribution to damaging the environment and we must approach the future cautiously. Let’s use intelligence in playing our part judiciously in this journey by using smart analytical tools to build a sustainable and resilient future.

Check how Increff smart technology solutions can help you walk on the path toward sustainable retailing. (LINK HERE).

Categories
Smart Merchandising Technology

Dive into your sales data and interpret the right story

Retail is one of the most data-driven industries, from sales data to inventory details – every data point offers an opportunity to make your retail business more efficient and successful. The right data at the right time can help you understand customer behavior, estimate demand requirements, build forecasts, and make informed decisions.

Here’s how the Increff Business Intelligence module can help you turn raw sales data into actionable insights and facilitate quick and informed decision-making.

Read: Tough challenges need creative solutions: Merchandising and assortment planning made easy.

Connect with us for more details