Thanks to technology, today, the business world has been revolutionized, allowing the optimization of business activities. Additionally, technology has enabled business owners to control inventories in the favor of their respective businesses. Therefore, various software solutions allow you to execute various processes automatically, delivering more accurate results. When providing services and products to customers, you want to ensure you have the right information regarding the demand. Therefore, you must conduct a demand plan on everything you need for a specific period and the exact quantity. But what is a demand plan? This article will provide everything you need about a demand plan and merchandising planning software.
What is a Demand Plan?
A demand plan is a supply chain management process that predicts or forecasts the demand for products or services. Demand planning strives to ensure the services or products are delivered at the right time and satisfy the customers. The main goal of a demand plan is to strike a balance between having enough inventory levels to meet client needs without necessarily having a surplus.
What is Merchandise Planning?
Merchandise planning involves a systematic approach to selling, planning, and buying merchandise depending on consumer demand. Typically, retailers conduct merchandise planning to ensure their customers get the right products at the right price, quantity, time, and place. In other words, merchandise planning involves choosing the products a retailer will carry and deciding the quantities they need to buy.
However, merchandising has become complicated nowadays following various changes in the retail industry. These changes include increased product variety, global sourcing, consolidation, elevated levels of competition, etc. Nevertheless, utilizing merchandising planning software can help your business achieve easier and better merchandise planning.
Amazing Benefits of Merchandise Planning Software
Reduced Inventory Costs
When executing your merchandising plans, your managers and merchandisers must check the history of retail visits. This includes the amounts of previous returns and orders. This allows merchandisers to evaluate the needs of each store better, allowing them to place orders that make sense. Consequently, they can anticipate the volumes of goods required to be delivered to the various retailers’ locations. While this can be a struggle when performed manually, merchandising planning software ensures everything is done swiftly. Therefore, your business realizes lower operating expenses, reduced inventory levels, and increased inventory turns.
Get Crucial Marketing Strategies
Incorporating merchandising software in your company drives accurate and fast store data collection using iOS or Android devices. The data gathered from the stores is automatically transferred to the corporate database, making it readily available for analysis. You can even integrate the software with other applications to get selling pattern analysis. Understanding the retail conditions offers prerequisites for setting goals and getting accurate sales forecasts, thus realizing excellent promotional and marketing strategies.
Lower Operating Costs
Typically, merchandising software provides improved real-time interactions among field team members and streamlined data workflow. On the other hand, automating data collection processes enables one to focus on customer needs and retail execution instead of manual data entry and paperwork. This reduces the time for task performance and errors, thus reducing operating costs.
