Your clusters directly influence your assortment plans because it involves how you respond to changes in consumer behaviour.
DotActiv Enterprise allows you to optimize your product offering to satisfy the specific needs of your target market for each cluster. This is achieved using the assortment planning tool, Range Optimizer.
Here you will customize assortment plans which are linked to your identified clusters and can be updated to your planograms and database with your newly created ranges.
Our Range Maintenance tool can also be used to maintain your existing ranges and update your planograms and database with any changes made.
Why is Proper Assortment Planning Necessary?
It is not enough to stock a range of products and hope they’ll sell. With DotActiv’s software, you can create custom data-driven product assortments that meet local shoppers’ needs and drive profitability in-store.
Assortment planning is directly linked to your cluster setup as your product ranges will be linked to your clusters. This way, your available store space can be optimised and the assortment plan fits your range cap.
Localised assortment plans are based on data and pre-set up rules to ensure that each range is targeted to the target market of each cluster. This will allow you to deliver the right products to the right people and avoid excess inventory and missed sales opportunities through out of stocks.
You can also manage obsolete inventory through proper product life cycle management. The DotActiv application uses a ‘five-week rule’ to allow your stock to deplete naturally before removing it from your planogram altogether.
DotActiv’s range optimization tool also provides the ability to use external market data to identify opportunity gaps in your product assortment.
How to Maximise Your Assortment Planning Efforts by Using DotActiv’s Software
This tool uses Rules, Templates, and Plans to recommend a range for each category cluster. Rules are pre set up calculations which give products a points-scoring based on the rules that are linked to them. Your products are then ranked based on specific attributes to address the needs of your customers.
Basic rules include Sales and Units, Time on Shelf, Good Better Best, SKU Size Limiter and many others. If you have a specific rule that influences the weighting of your SKU’s then custom rules can be created for you based on specific scenarios.
With DotActiv’s software, Assortment Planning is done at a store level or category level per cluster and it is connected to product and fixture dimensions which determine a “Range Cap” of products that can be included in your range.
Once you have planned your range, you can update a single planogram or a directory of planograms accordingly.
Please note that you should start with Range Maintenance first before working in the Range Optimizer.
Step-by-step Guide On How To Use Range Maintenance
- How To Open A New Assortment Plan
- How To Open An Existing Assortment Plan
- How To Open A Backup Assortment Plan
- How To Update Your Planograms And Database With Assortment Plan Changes
Step-by-step Guide On How To Use Range Optimizer
- How To Create A New Assortment Plan In Range Optimizer
- How To Read The Range Optimizer Results Grid
- How To Open An Existing Assortment Plan
- How To Open A Backup Assortment Plan
Common Assortment Planning Questions And Answers
- What is Range Optimizer used for?
Range Optimizer is used to select a range of products that will be on offer in a store. This selection is planned to maximize the effectiveness of your range in product performance and customer satisfaction.
- What information does the software consider when selecting a recommended assortment? Can this information be customized?
The software will consider the rules, templates and plans that you have set up. The rules that you set up in DotActiv’s Range Optimizer tool act as different performance measures to determine the value of any given product based on a points system.
Templates are a selection of rules that you can apply to a group of products or different levels of the display hierarchy, usually at sub-category or brand levels. Plans contain a selection of templates for a single category.
- We want to add an additional rule that looks at our promotion data, can we request additional rules to be added?
You can request that additional rules be set-up in the software. This will need to be discussed with DotActiv’s IT team.
- We have an existing assortment planning tool, can this tool be integrated into DotActiv’s software?
DotActiv will always work with you to ensure you have all your data readily available in the software. We will need to analyze the assortment tool that you use and determine if it is possible to integrate it with our software.
- Can the assortment planning tool act as a replenishment system?
The primary purpose of DotActiv’s assortment planning tool is not to act as a replenishment system, but rather to recommend a product range. There are warnings on the results grid that will appear. For example, if you are receiving supply of a certain item that is not on your planogram, the software will highlight this in your Range Optimizer Results Grid to avoid excess inventory of this product.
- What happens when we update our planograms from the suggested range? Where do the products get placed?
Once you have selected your range, you can choose to update to a single planogram or a directory of planograms. You can specify what needs to be done with your new products. For example, you can add your new products to a floating shelf above your planogram.
- How will the software prevent the suggested assortment from being too large?
When setting up your rules, templates and plans, you will need to indicate a range cap for each category. The range cap is the maximum number of products that will form your range. In this way, you can ensure that the assortment isn’t too large for the physical space that you have available.