Upskilling The Business
Let’s imagine you are a retail merchandiser. Your buyer is introducing a new flavoured pink gin. Calculate the quantity the buyer needs to place their first order with the supplier.
With no demand history for this product, how do you do it? An upskilling exercise includes steps to analyze past sales of the gin category, and flavoured gins if you have the data. Then ranking the products in the category or sub-category by sales volume. Adjust past history for any exceptional situations. Calculate how long it will take from first day on sale in a store for replenishment to kick in. Also calculate the quantity needed to populate the display fixture to achieve your presentation objectives.
Look at the product ranking with the buyer and make your best judgement of where it will sit in the rankings table once it has been noticed enough by shoppers. Use the closest product in the rankings table to estimate the sales level and spread the sales by week according to the sub-category analysis.
Use the replenishment lead time to calculate the minimum floor stock adding a safety element. Compare that with the display quantity and select the biggest number. Write that number on the purchase order.
If you can do this in a merchandiser role, you are quite definitely skilled.
Want to find out how Martec achieves this for you? Call me for more details, or complete the Contact Us form or send me a LinkedIn message and I’ll contact you.
-
Posted by Brian Hume
5th July 2024
