Leveraging Data-Driven Strategies for Fashion Merchandising: Benjamin’s Journey with Visulon
The fashion industry’s rapidly changing landscape requires merchandisers to track market trends and leverage comprehensive data analytics of consumer preferences to ensure their product assortments and line plans align seamlessly with customer demands. . Integrating data-driven strategies ensures that the product assortment aligns with customer preferences to maximize product sales.
Benjamin, an experienced merchandiser , recently joined a men’s apparel brand in Seattle. His first task involved navigating complex market data and emerging trends to prepare for the upcoming Winter 2024 season. The company, specializing in its extensive range of men’s apparel from casual wear to performance footwear, required Benjamin to blend his merchandising expertise with advanced data analysis.
As Winter 2024 approached, Benjamin faced a significant challenge. The company’s executives scheduled a pivotal meeting in four weeks to discuss the product assort plan and cost for 2024. This meeting would set the stage for the upcoming season’s product assortment strategies by style, geography, and retail customer preferences.
Drowning in data: Benjamin faces a dead end!
Initially optimistic, Benjamin soon found himself drowned in a chaotic sea of disorganized data. The company relied on fragmented tools such as Excel sheets, PowerPoint presentations, and printed reports, resulting in inefficiencies and data silos that hindered effective decision-making.
Benjamin’s task was daunting: he needed to review last winter’s product performance, sales by region, and various sales channels (such as Amazon or Macy’s) while also forecasting Winter 2024. He had to accurately compare data from winter 2022 and 2023 products, infuse new market trends and present a line and assortment plan to guide product selection for the new season.
Despite his best efforts, Benjamin struggled with the traditional methods. The manual comparison of hundreds of products and line boards proved unsustainable and error-prone. As the deadline approached, his frustration grew; the risk of presenting incomplete or inaccurate information was high as the executives typically didn’t have patience due to competitive pressures.
As the deadline approached, his frustration grew; the risk of presenting incomplete or inaccurate information was high.
The executive meeting was a nightmare. The executives wanted to know more about the best-selling products from previous winters, best sellers by style, by region and by sales channels, how certain individual product categories have performed in the last reason, and how they could approach the new assortment plan for Winter 2024 while using historic performance data coupled with the information about the new fashion trends.
Despite putting in long hours, Benjamin lacked clear and precise answers. His report put his professional expertise and credibility under ultimate scrutiny.
Benjamin's Strategic Move: Showcasing Visulon to the Management
Benjamin recognized that the conventional tools were inadequate for the task at hand. His previous experience with an AI-powered visual merchandising platform, Visulon, had shown him how much more efficient data analysis could be. He decided to propose Visulon to his boss as the most effective solution.
In a strategic one-on-one meeting with his boss, Benjamin highlighted Visulon’s features, emphasizing its data analytics and reporting capabilities. Visulon’s Recap View allowed users to focus on specific product categories, sales channels, and regions, streamlining costing analysis. Its assortment/product comparison functionality enabled easy comparison of products, highlighting key differences and similarities with just a few clicks. Additionally, Visulon integrated data from ERP, CRM, and PLM systems, unifying information previously scattered across various formats.
Visulon’s Recap View allowed users to focus on specific product categories, sales channels, and regions, streamlining costing analysis.
Impressed by Visulon’s potential, Benjamin’s boss recommended the platform to the board, leading to a demo of its comprehensive capabilities and benefits. The demo showcased Visulon’s AI-powered Visual Line Planning & Merchandising Platform, highlighting features such as:
- Data Analytics and Reports: A Recap View that enables detailed analysis of specific product categories, sales channels, and regions. It includes a list view with simple filters to select or drop products from previous seasons and a “Top 10/20/50” feature to identify top styles and products.
- Assortment/Product Comparison: A module that facilitates easy comparison of products based on attributes, generating visual reports like bar and pie charts. This feature allows for efficient sorting and analysis of product data.
- Power BI Integration:Visulon’s real-time integration with Power BI allows industry’s best visulization of reorts using in-built Power BI access.
Visulon’s comprehensive suite of tools proved to be a game-changer for Benjamin’s company. The platform’s ability to unify and analyze data from various sources provided a cohesive and accurate picture, fundamentally transforming Benjamin’s approach to data analysis and strategic decision-making.
Experience the Visulon advantage: Transforming Data Challenges into Insights.
For fashion brands striving to stay ahead of trends and streamline their merchandising processes, Visulon offers a powerful solution. Its advanced features simplify data management and enhance the accuracy of line and assortment planning.
Benjamin’s experience underscores the critical need for efficient data analysis in fashion merchandising. With Visulon, fashion companies can overcome the challenges of traditional methods and gain valuable insights to drive their product strategies.
Visulon’s Recap View allowed users to focus on specific product categories, sales channels, and regions, streamlining costing analysis.
Discover how Visulon can revolutionize your data analysis and reporting for fashion merchandising. Request a demo today and experience the advantage of transforming data challenges into actionable insights giving your brand a competitive edge!
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