Details
Smart Supply
You will be familiar with it. Your merchandiser sends as much stock as possible to the stores, so that as little as possible stays behind in the distribution centre or warehouse. Unfortunately, this often means that you have to redistribute your stock later.
Smart Supply does not immediately send all stock from the distribution centre to the stores. After an initial allocation, the software uses an algorithm to determine the highest sales potential per SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) for each location. The stock will be distributed to the stores at which the demand for the product is the greatest.
Not one-on-one replenishment but a dynamic process. This means that you improve your product availability, increase your profit margin, reduce excess inventory and have fewer missed sales. But how does Smart Supply work? Find out below.
Dynamic stock management
Our system does not determine stock targets based on historical data but by means of three factors: realised sales transactions, available stock, and individual store settings. Based on an algorithm, the software calculates the stock target levels of every SKU on a daily basis, creating orders overnight to realise these levels in each store. Not one-on-one replenishment but dynamic stock management based on consumers' purchasing behaviour.
Smart Supply features
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Sales-driven; optimum balance between sales and stock.
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Daily order creation by store, article, colour and size.
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Stock replenishment based on realised sales transactions.
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SaaS solution: Full-featured hosting & service by Chainbalance to ease pressure on your IT department.
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Not standard one-on-one replenishment: Dynamic target level adjustment (fast & slow movers).
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Unlimited number of unique SKUs.
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No complex user settings.
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Proactive monitoring.
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Multi DC functionality with prioritisation.
Dashboard and reports
When you get to the office in the morning, you want to see right away which orders have been created and are on their way to your stores or customers. Smart Supply is very user-friendly. You simply look at the 'store status' overview and, if needed, export it to an Excel sheet to apply your own filters. You can, of course, view other reports, such as:
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Inventory report: minimum target per store and per SKU, current inventory and sales per week over the past four weeks.
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Activation list: which SKU per store is active for replenishment, within which period this is active and the related target levels.
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Stock to sales; this report lists the number of items ordered by Smart Supply per week over the past 13 weeks, if necessary filtered by store, week or article level.
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Out of Stock: follow the out-of-stock percentage over the past 13 weeks. You can, for instance, filter by store or article level.
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Inventory turns: follow the stock turns over the past 13 weeks, filtered by store or article level, for instance.
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Top 10 movers: this report shows the article groups that have sold best and worst over the past three weeks. This report can be filtered by store and active/inactive articles.
Event planning
By creating an event, additional products can be sent to the stores without the software changing the target levels. For example, a user can send 2,000 additional products to 10 stores using an event order. Sales transactions during the event are not included in the calculation of the target levels. The module only provides additional stock where it is needed during an event. The event planning module can also be used to push stock that still remains at the end of the season to the stores.
Initial allocation
The first supplies are sent to your stores or your customers stores at the start of a new season, a process that can be optimised using Smart Supply's 'initial allocation module'. Based on the realised sales data of other, comparable article groups, you can use customised advice on quantities per size to optimise the first allocation run. This means that size curves match sales results from the very first delivery.
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To create an attractive store image, 12 items of each article are still allocated, but instead of the standard (1 2 3 3 2 1), this now matches the numbers of similar articles actually sold at this location (e.g. 2 2 4 2 1 1). By optimising the initial allocation, the actual stock in the store matches customer demand more closely. The result? Improved sales figures and lower costs for redistributing stock during the season.
Seasonal trends
The Smart Supply 'seasonal trends module' is intended for customers who use recurrent article groups or NOOS collections that are sold more during a certain recurrent period. For example: skin-coloured bras sell better in summer, while darker bras sell better in winter. At the beginning of a seasonal sales period, you can increase the target levels of these SKUs to last year's sales level.
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