Assortment management on selling points: a success story in large scale retail
For a customer leader in the GDO with over 170 stores throughout Italy we have created a Java application that deals with the management of the entire process of the assortments of the store.
THE RELEVANCE OF THE ASSORTEMENTS
The point of sale assortment definition (the set of products sellable and may be ordered) is key to achieve good sales results.
It is a complex process based on different elements (scope, depth, specialization) to manage balancing the company and clients approach.
The complexity of managing grows with the number of selling points, of geography coverage and their heterogeneity. The definition of the assortment of a point of sale (the set of products that can be ordered and sold) is essential to obtain good sales results.
Having access to a flexible application that makes easy periodical design revision, the daily management and assortment control become an essential asset for the large scale retail corporations.
THE MANAGEMENT PROCESS
DESIGN - Beginning from sales strategy allows to define the goods assortment by category in a virtual environment
WORKING MANAGEMENT - Launch the assortment production
CONTROL - Examine the assortment status
MAIN CONCEPTS [shops, items, format]
Shops are classified by:
- geographic location (area),
- type (channel: hypermarkets, supermarkets, minishops etc)
The product are divided by goods category.
Formats are:
- sets designed to hold items,
- concentric within the same channel.
- The items part of the C format will be contained into the A and B format.
KEY CONCEPTS [assortment range, exeptions]
To the pair <shop, items classification)> a format is given.
To triple <item, channel, area> a format is given.
An item a belongs to the assortment shop n if the format related to the shop n and to the product codification of item a Ê the format associated to the item a channel and shop location n.
Assortment exceptions allow to apply changes based on two guiding rules:
- adding the product item to the shop assortment range
- taking off the product item from the shop assortment range.
FUNCTIONALITY WITHIN THE THREE PROCESS STAGES
DESIGN STAGE The app provides a test device conceived to:
- planning of numerical sets,
- items portfolio definition,
- display of format for the preconfigured testing areas,
- for the areas that need it, the drawing up of a format in absolute exception,
- easy display of sales statistics, operative margin and percentages for any testing area,
- display of the budgetary variations due to sales and/or margin,
- display of incidence due to national data derived from business sector statistic organizations.
OPERATING MANAGEMENT STAGE The application allows to:
- to implement up to date result of the design stage,
- to provide an assortment profile of the new items,
- the adjustment of the assortment profile already dealt as format or exceptions
- change or make a shop assortment profile,
- analyzing of massive number of the above mentioned movements in line to specific events,
- combining of items in groups,
- the exception definition by < shop, or items group>,
- automatic update of assortments as imput for the shop information system.
CONTROL STAGE The application allows to control:
- Shop assortment
- the item distribution on shops network,
- the sum up of the items numerical by goods type and format within the shop,
- the comparison between the planned and actual numeric sets.
THE TECHNOLOGY
The app is implemented on Java adopting the J2EE standards with JSF e Application Server Weblogic technology.
The access to the data, for both Databases, works through JDBC driver.
The DBMS is Oracle for both Databases involved.
