Merchandising:  Planning & Replenishment

Magstar Total Retail Ensures Product Life Cycle

Right Product, in the Right Place, at the Right Time, at the Right Price

This may be the buyers' credo, but the harsh reality is that it goes much deeper than being just a catchy phrase. The cascading results of inadequate buying don’t just stop with a few lost sales and profits. If you do not have the product that customers want when they want it, your existing and potential future customers will shop at your competitor’s store, likely never to return.

Over-buying has its perils as well. Inventory is the single most costly and ongoing investment for any retailer. Buying too much, too often, can cripple and even kill a solid and viable retail enterprise. Having over-stocked shelves inhibits the ability to keep up with trends by quickly obtaining new product. Markdowns soar, the bottom line plummets, and creditors get fidgety. 

With a Total Retail solution in place you can attain maximum profitability while minimizing floor stock.  Total Retail will give you crisp and accurate visibility tools can provide you with, along with it's many other productivity and profitability features.

Planning

Good buying starts with a solid and realistic assessment of what the sales goals are and what the Inventory investment requirement is that will achieve those goals. Total Retail provides many tools that sound buyers can employ in their arsenals. Comprehensive budgeting and forecasting tools are found in the powerful, multi-location “Open-To-Buy” module. Elsewhere in the system, history-based requirements forecasting and trends' analysis give planners the edge when it comes to projecting their future buys. Managing multiple locations and selling channels? No problem.

Total Retail lets you run your requirements' forecasts for individual or multiple selling locations and warehouses. Extensive selection criteria lets you tailor your forecast to whatever level of product group you need: Department, Sub-Department, Category, Sub-Category, Style, and even single items or groups of items.

Effective planning is not exclusive to inventory requirements. Customer Relationship Management, Marketing, Advertising and Promotions all play a key role in ensuring the success of achieving those goals. Total Retail lets you create and manage your promotional events a week, a month, or even a year in advance, with automatic activation on schedule. Full promotion analysis tools let you review the performance of previous events by product, location, and media type. Tight integration with the Purchase Order sub-system updates and provides direct access to your promotion file from within your promo-item order creation process.

Source / Procure / Distribute

Sound planning is just the beginning. Buyers need to convert requirements forecasts into Purchase Orders, negotiate prices, terms and delivery, then receive and get those products onto the store shelves. Vendor performance analysis, and multiple vendors, per item, are just two of the strengths Total Retail offers.

Use EDI to get orders to your vendor, receive confirmations, advance shipping notices, and invoices. Direct access to open orders and distribution plans through the integrated Warehousing module lets your receivers plan in advance of incoming shipments.

Total Retail’s Purchase Order supports pre-distributed orders to multiple locations, post-distributed, cross-dock, or direct-to-store shipments. Integrated, automatic picking/packing slip generation lets your warehouse turn deliveries around and get them out to the stores quickly and accurately.

Transact

Cash flow will need to be managed carefully in the years ahead.  To have successful cash flow management, you need to see the whole picture. Sales proceeds need to be monitored, with cash banked and credit/debit card transactions processed without delay. Both short- and long-range cash requirements must be calculated regularly with recurring items (property leases, utilities, payroll, etc.) factored in along with invoice payment to vendors and other suppliers.

Total Retail’s “Centralized Information” makes all of the vital information available for Cash Requirements' Reporting and lets you take advantage of any available early payment discounts.

Sell / Monitor / Replenish

Total Retail’s Multi-channel Commerce ability lets you keep your finger on the pulse of all of your selling activity. Centralized information gives you access to the kind of instant information that you need to advantage of new opportunities or to become proactive in your responses to potential threats. There are hundreds of specialized reports throughout Total Retail that provide the detailed information that you need. Analyze sales, stock position, store and individual sales performance, vendor contribution to profit, project selling requirements, and much, much more.

A variety of "Just-in-Time" Replenishment tools are standard in Total Retail. Replenish by Min-Max, projected selling requirements, or one-for-one replacement. Use the Total Retail Auto Scheduler to automatically kick-off replenishment or run ad-hoc selections by location, zone, region, style, item, etc. Print picking documents instantly right in the warehouse to expedite the process. Full “Bin Management” and “Smart-Pick” logic gives an edge to the warehouse, allowing them to get product out to the stores without delay.

Auto Replenishment Features:

• Create Min/Max levels for an item or a range of items

Set levels manually on an item by location basis; or by range selection; or by sales activity; or by forecasted selling requirement, automatically adjusted when seasonal and/or promotional items are detected. The operator can establish default levels based on product groups, styles, or on an item by item basis.

• Replenish product to the stores by:
  • Min/Max
  • Reorder quantity/reorder level
  • Forecasted selling requirements
  • Item sales activity (one for one)
• Replenishment by stock movement

Allows stores to draw against merchandise in the warehouse based on the sales activity over a period of weeks, the projected number of selling weeks remaining and the remaining stock levels in the store. Picking documents can be instantly printed in the Warehouse to expedite your distribution, with automatic Purchase Order generation to replenish warehouse short-fills from the vendor.