Fat Face, the UK lifestyle clothing brand, has implemented TXT Retail's merchandise and assortment planning solution to support its fast-growing retail enterprise.
Nick Stevenson, head of merchandising at Fat Face said, “Our e-commerce business is growing fast; but online ultimately requires a different mix of products to a traditional store layout and poses new challenges both in terms of planning and logistics.”
Before implementing TXT Retail, Fat Face relied on a variety of different planning processes which were becoming more and more complicated to manage across the business.
Stevenson said, “With the business expanding and becoming more multi-channel, it soon came to light that handling all our merchandising and buying processes on spreadsheets was no longer suitable for making fairly critical business decisions. TXT Retail's approach and the way the solution works fitted perfectly with our internal processes and where we wanted to go. We didn't have to teach people a completely new way of doing things. The solution is very intuitive and logically set out for efficiently managing the planning process.”
TXT Retail's merchandise and assortment planning solution provides Fat Face with a collaborative planning environment that balances strategic goals with merchandise plans to identify ideal product mixes and volumes, according to a case study conducted by TXT Retail.
The system plans ranges tailored to customers, depending on a particular store's profile and available space. Around 60 people across the business - buyers, merchandisers, finance, ecommerce, store managers, visual merchandisers - regularly use the software.
A season ahead, the software is initially used to construct high-level financial plans. Next, based on analysing historical data and knowing what typically sells, where, and when, these objectives are automatically broken down into weekly stock, profit and sales targets. Finally, the Assortment Planning software builds a detailed plan of what every store, or channel, should stock and how many of every item to buy.
