Range Planning, Merchandise Planning and Assortment Planning

If you are considering a project in range, merchandise or assortment planning you have come to the right place. Our team at Retail Acumen have vast expertise in this area and are here to help you.

Clash of the Titans - Buying vs. Merchandising!
Retailing - More like Magic than business!
Merchandise Planning - Central to Profitable Retailing
Effective Range Performance Measurement - Plan vs. Actual
Why a little bit of Retail Acumen can help you...

We understand that this business area really represents the clash of the titans:

• Buying
  • product selection
  • procurement
  • QA and design etc
  vs.
• Merchandising
  • Commercial
  • Trading
  • Marketing
  • Supply Chain
  • Operations...

The aim being that the final range selected not only meets and exceeds the customers' expectations, but is also innovative, really shouts the brand values and can be delivered to the consumers' baskets in the most reliable and cost effective manner.

Then you add to this questions such as how to provide your customer with:

• the right depth and width of range - ensuring sufficient choice and range completeness
• the right price architecture - guiding the customer through the options available
• the right quality and value - ensuring the brand and product propositions fit your business
• great on shelf availability (with minimal stock investment) - ensuring you maximise your sales potential off the lowest possible cost base

And all whilst delivering:

• a flexible, responsive, agile supply base - to ensure you can follow consumer trends quickly
• a better return per square foot than the last range - to mitigate the ever increasing cost of property
• a better shopping experience for the customer - to secure their loyalty, repeat business and increased basket size...

for heaven's sake! This retailing stuff is more like magic than business!

Most world-class retail businesses have some form of range planning / merchandise planning process at the centre of all their commercial planning activities. Merchandise or range plans articulate the financial targets in terms of how the range should be built up, what proportion of the total business mix a range should take, associated store and DC space allocations, etc. Moving along the time line closer to the time of range launch, merchandise / range plans become a key document for buyers and merchandisers, a living document, that captures all key information as products are developed and data is gathered that ultimately influence buying price, selling price, store distribution and store position, promotion planning, markdown budget, supply chain flow, sourcing strategy, rate of sales etc.

Most world-class retail businesses have some form of range planning / merchandise planning process at the centre of all their commercial planning activities. Merchandise or range plans articulate the financial targets in terms of how the range should be built up, what proportion of the total business mix a range should take, associated store and DC space allocations, etc. Moving along the time line closer to the time of range launch, merchandise / range plans become a key document for buyers and merchandisers, a living document, that captures all key information as products are developed and data is gathered that ultimately influence buying price, selling price, store distribution and store position, promotion planning, markdown budget, supply chain flow, sourcing strategy, rate of sales etc.

The Range Plan or Merchandise Plan as they are equally well known, form the basis for the development of the store / store cluster level assortment plan and in a fully integrated planning process are the trigger for both the demand planning and visual merchandising processes. A good range plan also allows the buyer and merchandiser to measure the effectiveness of their ranges against the original budgets and against plan. It allows for hard and soft constraints to be applied in operations, such as Open To Buy (OTB), management of intake, delivered margins, promotional activity and markdown / residuals planning to be undertaken via use of a WSSI.

With such criticality to the business and a dependency on such a wide set of data a quality merchandise plan / range plan with adequate roll up and drill down capability can really only be delivered from a quality tool, supported by quality business processes and well trained teams.

Retail Acumen can really help you if you need any support in any part of this area - it's our core capability.

All of our consultants and senior consultants have had many years experience employed by some of the world's leading retailers in buying, merchandising, category management and planning roles. Additionally we have all had hands-on experience of implementing process, organisation and systems improvements into commercial functions, delivering improved profitability through better range planning, merchandise planning, assortment planning and through establishing robust processes and controls.

We're proud to have supported clients such as ASDA, Habitat, Thresher, Sainsburys, Woolworths and many more improve their performance in this core retail business area.

If your business would like to explore how a little bit of Retail Acumen can help you, please feel free to contact us.