A customer-centric merchandising strategy enables retailers to optimize selling space and further build customer and brand loyalty. However, ongoing changes to assortments are inevitable and must be addressed to achieve success. Many retailers initially invest a lot of time and effort to create perfect merchandise plans for each category. Unfortunately, many fail to fully maintain the plans. As time passes, shelf erosion begins to set in. Existing products shift and some items never even make it to the shelf — defeating the purpose and benefits of the strategy.

 

When a customer-centric merchandise strategy is created, it's fundamental to keep the plans current. Retailers must accommodate new items and eliminate poor performers. However, many retailers fall short on communicating plan changes to stores in an easy, executable way.

 

In turn, many store managers find it too hard or time-consuming to fully comply. In addition, some retailers do not allocate enough time to complete the update and do not synchronize timing and communication with the availability of new products and markdowns. Over time, the merchandising strategy begins to blur and product lines, allocation and brand presence start to erode.

 

However, ongoing maintenance, also known in the industry as "minor revision," can be a painless process using the right automation tool. When initially selecting an automated customer-centric merchandising solution, ensure it has built in real-world-tested minor revision capabilities. The one-in-one-out rule is fantasy; often there isn't anything "minor" about the minor revision. But the right tool enables retailers to retrieve a merchandise plan to identify what items should be removed and what items need to be added to the assortment. From there, the solution will identify a plan to make the changes work in a way that minimizes the overall change to the original plan and maintains strategic unity.

 

Once updates are complete, the solution will publish executable store-specific plans customized to fit each store's fixtures — taking into consideration width, depth, and current plan configuration. Corporate can then convey step-by-step directions to every store manager via a modern, interactive store-specific portal. The ability to quickly e-mail the plans ensures that assortments will be updated in a timely fashion and stores will not lag behind. Furthermore, corporate has visibility as to when action is taken. This helps retailers to gauge and promote compliance in-store.

 

Without clear communication, merchandise plan changes simply won't happen consistently in-store; indeed, compliance is the elephant in room. This creates a domino effect and greatly transforms a planned strategy into something far different in stores. With all the resources that retailers use to create their strategy, it makes sense to invest just a little more in managing the complete lifecycle.