Merchandise Assortment Planning

Successful catalog and Internet companies rely on expert merchandise planning.

Set goals for demand units and revenue, gross margins, return rates, advertising costs, and profitability, and then achieve them with Direct Tech’s Merchandise Assortment Planning System (MAPS).

This performance analysis and planning tool provides immediate access to profit metrics from demand through contribution margin and even profit after overhead. In an instant, you can identify profitable and unprofitable items to optimize future merchandise assortments.

Benefits

Develop, test, and perfect plans with tools that organize information to establish strategic objectives on a macro level, as well as merchandise selection and planning on a tactical level. With MAPS, you're able to:

Control top-down budget allocation by product category
Increase sales and gross margin through enhanced assortments
Maximize the profitability of style assortment plans
Ensure style assortment plan meets budget through real-time variance reporting

Features

MAPS allows you to plan your merchandise assortment based on factors that offer the greatest return for you and to the level of detail necessary to ensure success at the tactical level. You’re able to:

Apply budget metrics such as demand, gross margin, style count, space, contribution margin, and more
Use historical data to identify and plan for growing and declining categories
Build style assortment plans from actual, style-level financial performance history
Identify which items are in premium selling locations
Identify a style's featured color to forecast color percentages
Create “placeholder” styles to allow forecasting before final product specifications are completed
Use dynamic screens to customize, group, and sort information

Learn how clients increase sales and profits with Direct Tech.