Retail Availability


Vs inventory: One plan to rule them all


Ed Betts, general manager – retail lead Europe at Retail Express, considers the importance of a central planning platform and AI-driven forecasting to ensure seasonal event success.


T


he retail calendar year is a busy one. Te industry plays a pivotal role in making fixed seasonal events special,


in setting the tone, creating the ambience and making every occasion memorable. Whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Passover, Easter, Holi or Eid al-Adha, or one-offs such as sporting events or the King’s Coronation, there is an expectation that stores will be stocked with an abundance of event-related products and branded merchandising to create the desired fanfare. Yet, for retail businesses, planning and


executing such events is far from straight- forward. To differentiate themselves from the market and become the go-to destination for customers they must pull out all the stops with innovative approaches that are not just about price, but about the wider customer offer. Stock availability must be carefully managed to meet perceived demand and orders placed with multiple suppliers months in advance; while also simultaneously


52 | September/October 2023


coordinating appropriate marketing activities to ensure significant interest and sell-through of an event’s related categories with minimal inventory leſt over to optimise profits. Tis is a difficult balancing act, with financial targets on a knife edge.


The challenge of events planning All too oſten, such planning is based on assumption and guesswork, making forecasting with any degree of accuracy incredibly problematic. While figures about the previous year’s performance might be available to some degree – and can’t always be relied on due to nuances that may have affected demand at the time - the use of legacy systems and the manual sharing of documents which is time consuming, cumbersome and unreliable,


only serve to compound the problem. A retailer that is essentially blindfolded has little hope of being the first to market with new event-themed products without a system that will help them do so.


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