We are meeting more and more planners and retail account managers who want to more consistently monitor sales, inventory and profitability of their retail programs. The reasons are evident: The combination of margin guarantees and a weak retail environment create dangerous exposure for manufacturers. Inventory mistakes are more problematic when a supplier's own margins are lower and credit is tighter. Closely monitoring and reacting - in season and real time - is paramount.
Whether you use your own spreadsheet or commercial software such as our Item Planner, be sure your solution shows the net effect of profit of a product or program based on seasonality and the retailer’s promotional calendar – and enables the review of multiple “what-if” scenarios. Based on these factors, you can see if the cost structure will support a margin guarantee. You will also want to be able to calculate the optimum cost- the cost at which the margin guarantee is met. Like retailers, you should be able to track history, the current year plan and actual results in real time- and be able to run reports to help manage and track merchandise programs including: This Year Plan vs. Last Year, Weekly and Cumulative Sell Through, This Year Actual vs. This Year Plan and Last Year, and Receipt Planning.
Due to increased interest and customer requests, we have added many new features to Item Planner, including:
- The ability to upload Actual Units, Dollars and On Hand Inventory and Last Year On Hand Inventory History via a Microsoft Excel template.
- Automatic calculation of actual Gross Profit %.
- Cleaner formatting in data grids to make them even easier to read and interpret.
- New enterprise friendly features including the ability to share plans and sales curve databases across a company's network or connect directly to the sales curve database in the main Desktop Analyst application.
- The addition of Margin % to date, Margin trend to date, Profit/Loss Act $ to date, and Profit/Loss $ trend to reporting.
We encourage our clients to make use of these features straight away.
No matter how you do it, we urge you to closely track your inventory at your retail clients (and how that matches you own inventory position), and if relevant, closely monitor any Margin "Goals"/Guarantees you agree to.
Jim Lewis
Founder and CEO
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