BOSTON -- Boston Retail Partners, a consulting firm that serves clients including Wawa and TravelCenters of America, found current retail merchandise planning systems are out of date and don’t effectively address today’s requirements for an omnichannel planning environment.
Many retailers are using planning applications designed for old retail business models, with a large percentage of these systems installed in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Fast-forward to today, and many retailers are attempting to meet the needs of a 21st century customer while constrained by 20th century technology.
Today’s consumer demands an omnichannel retail experience offered in real time, whereby all retail locations—whether physical or virtual—converge to provide a fast, easy, unified
Key findings in the 2015 Merchandise Planning Benchmark Survey include:
- Planning systems are outdated; 63% of retailers plan to upgrade or replace their merchandise planning systems within two years.
- Analytics is on the front burner; 58% of retailers indicated that improving analytics is their top priority for the next year.
- Advanced analytics are gaining traction; 75%t of retailers use advanced analytics for merchandise planning; however, fewer use advanced analytics for store planning (45%), assortment planning (40%) and omnichannel planning (20%)
- Integrated merchandising plans are not working well. While 50% of retailers have implemented integrated merchandising plans (financial plans, promotional calendars, planning teams and assortment plans), most of these retailers, across multiple channels, indicate they need improvement
- Social media use for merchandise planning is opportunistic. While 71% of retailers indicated that they capture customer feedback via social media, only 23% are using social media for product planning.
Click here for more details at Convenience Store Products Online.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.