CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Specialty Retailer Success with GAINS
Reducing inventory costs while increasing profits without sacrificing customer service.
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- 300 stores across Australia and New Zealand
- 10,000 different items available in store
- More than 3,800 team members
11%
increase in Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) in the first 12 months
$60
million increase in sales without additional inventory investment
$12
million improvement in operating cash flow in year one
97%
on shelf availability with zero expediting
“With GAINS, we were able to ensure that 97% of all products were on the shelf, in the right store, to meet each day’s customers request with no expediting. The remaining 3% of our
special orders were in the store the next day for customer pick-up.”
Supply Chain Manager, Specialty Retailer
Company Overview
A specialty retailer with 300 stores and 3,800 team members across Oceania selected GAINS. The retailer offers an expansive product range, including automotive parts and accessories, tools, outdoor equipment, and DIY supplies.
Challenges
After years of growth and expansion, this specialty retailer earned a positive reputation for over 10,000 different items with in-stock availability. However, growth and inventory carrying costs were beginning to impact bottom-line profitability. The retailer also realized their systems and infrastructure needed an upgrade to support continued growth plans.
The specialty retailer needed to find a solution that would help reduce inventory investment without sacrificing customer service or their reputation of ensuring off-the-shelf availability of every item in every store.
Objectives
To maintain their reputation for “off the shelf” availability and reduce their overall inventory spend, the GAINS platform was deployed to automate and optimize replenishment planning programs synchronizing in-stock service goals. Using AI and machine learning, GAINS determined the optimal source for each SKU by location with in-depth analysis of each parent location, primary vendor, surplus location, and alternate vendors.
The GAINS platform also delivered real-time simulations testing both tactical and strategic scenarios as well as dynamic forecast modeling. Now the retailer had an objective, bias-free demand plan to guide the business. GAINS also provided improved stocking policies that covered what to stock and where, as well as an optimized network flow of how best to provision products. With new insights, automation, and greater precision from the GAINS solution, store-level forecasting and planning for more than 10,000 in-store items were comfortably managed by a team of 8 planners.
