Allocation and Communication to Stores

Nowadays, retailers possess more and more diverse store formats that face the complexity of combining local and regional specificities. It leads them to create different width and depth of ranges in order to answer the majority of stores specificities.

“target your clients segments to delight your shoppers”

CLUSTERING AND RANKING - ADOPTED FOR AN ACCURATE AND SPECIFIC STORE ALLOCATION

The clustering corresponds to create varied group of stores that have harmonized characteristics. It facilitates the comparison of the stores having same characteristics and it makes easier the definition of the strategy for one or several clusters.

ibs Assortment allows retailers to consider a large amount of factors that can be integrated during the assortment creation process such as:

  • Demographic criteria: size of the population, type of the population: young, senior, student…
  • Geographical criteria: seaside / country side / mountain location, urban / rural…
  • Climate: cold, humid, warm, temperate…
  • Cultural and ethnical characteristics: regional / national way of consumption, ethnic consumption…
  • Economic criteria: socio-professional categories, incomes…
  • Competitive environment: number of competitors, competitor positioning

“define your cluster with much information you want”

Considering the ranking approach, ibs Assortment enables you to develop plans that are truly aligned to your customer's preferences and store needs. Create the number of ranks for your assortments with the scenarios module and attribute characteristics to these ranks (nested and non-nested for example).

ibs Assortment allows the management and the automation of clusters and ranks with:

  • Clusters automatic creation at any organization level with possible ibs AMS intervention (add forecast perceptions)
  • Versioning of assortment to fulfill store needs (ranks definition)
  • Ranking recommendation for each stores
  • Management Exception

CENTRALIZED VS DECENTRALIZED PROCESS

ibs Assortment provides solutions that are adaptable to any organizational mode:

  • Rank management: possibility to set up unlimited numbers of ranks.
  • Reinforce the store / central communication: make the communication clearer and faster between stores and headquarters concerning the store positioning and feedback. Indeed, our solution is adapted to any communication process: store viewpoint integration, assortment allocation notice, and implementation's recommendation…

ibs Assortment' Store positioning module gives you the choice of organization:

  • Your stores position itself on the assortment ranks
  • Recommend or impose a rank to your stores
  • The ability to modify or inherit the item selection of a rank
  • Consolidate the assortments defined by your stores in case of decentralized process

Supported by workflow alerts to reinforce communications between central departments and stores, and to involve all actors in a complete process.

  • A real-time follow up of stores positioning ensures that you have taken the right choices in term of assortment allocation (positioning and comparison reports).
  • A re-positioning process and a follow-up management can be applied to react immediately face to market and strategy evolution, or unexpected changes.