Hands-on demand planning & forecasting

You don’t need workarounds when you have a team to work with. Unlike inventory forecasting software that leaves you with more work and more questions, our team ensures you’re equipped with all the merchandise planning, sales forecasting, reporting, and inventory accuracy tools you need to understand and grow your business.

Shades of green colored pencils, sorted for easy data analysis and review.

Business Reporting & Analysis

    • Comprehensive daily/weekly/monthly sales, inventory, and consumer metrics

    • Reports with relevant business KPIs, e.g., revenue, units, IMU, margin, sell-through, stock-to-sales, AUR, AOV, UPT, and more

    • Dashboards customized to the specific attributes and details your business requires

    • Review sales, inventory, and customer data to understand the ‘why’ behind product, event, and promotional performance in the prior season

    • Plan ahead by analyzing previous triumphs and challenges

    • Evaluate category performance and overall growth assumptions

    • Assess key consumer trends that will drive the customer’s purchasing criteria and preferences in the category

    • Develop a go-forward category strategy for assortment shifts, brand and classification mix, attribute breakdowns, etc.

    • Understand your current size selling by style, category, and channel

Easy-to-digest, actionable tools and data are key to running a profitable business. Get weekly and monthly reporting, seasonal hindsights, and category deep dives, plus resources to investigate open questions and analyze opportunities

  • Understand what products, categories, or channels are driving sales, margin, and productivity

  • Analyze and launch growth projects continually put off due to competing resources

An assortment of beauty products, and earrings

Demand Planning & Forecasting

    • Custom demand forecasting methods and Demand Planning Models that provide up to 18 months of rolling forecasts at the SKU level

    • Detail by channel and by retailer, as applicable

    • Easy to update as business needs evolve

    • Includes summary rollups of the demand forecast at the required level of detail, e.g., division, category, channel, etc.

    • Monthly process support to update Demand Planning Tool inputs, e.g., changes in current trends, new item launches, new wholesale partners, etc.

    • The Supply Planning Tool ingests the Demand Plan by SKU to create a corresponding Supply Plan at the component level that informs purchases within lead time and allows for continual production to meet demand

    • Includes a component summary rollup of the demand forecast and inventory needs

    • The New/Launch Order Tool facilitates the placement of pre-season purchase orders and new product launches

    • Considers historical performance as well as inventory and assortment trends to support forecasts for product extensions, assortment expansion, and new category launches

    • Coordinate decisions on pricing and promotions that impact your demand forecast with an analytical approach, taking into account cost, price sensitivity, and in-market comps

    • Model planned promotions for expected margin impact as well as expected consumer behavior (e.g., drive more customers to the shop or increase the value of their baskets)

Nailing your sales plan is crucial to planning inventory investments and other vital business resources. Understand the inputs of revenue and demand to better forecast your future sales, margin, and pricing

  • Enhance support for multi-channel demand with a more accurate, forward-looking sales and demand plan

  • Gain greater confidence in initial and pre-season buys as well as reorder

Colorful inventory of sewing thread, that has a few colors out of stock.

Inventory Planning & Forecasting

    • Identify and isolate “core” items for forecasting and reorder quantity recommendations using the Demand Planning and Forecasting Model

    • The Financial Purchasing Budget Tool can be built by month, category, and channel as applicable and is customized to specify cadence, category/sub-cat level, channel detail, etc.

    • Implement dynamic inventory management by taking into account projected sales as well as current and projected inventory levels

    • Out-of-stock report

    • Overstock report

    • Weekly or monthly reviews of inventory levels, out-of-stock risks, and reorder data to ensure efficient inventory management across the assortment

The best customer experience hinges on accurate inventory forecasting - having the right product at the right time. Let’s make the most of your inventory investments

  • Avoid markdowns, out of stocks, and lost sales with effective inventory forecasting methods and replenishment plans

  • Stay ahead of seasonal spikes through proactive sales forecasts and routine reviews

Modern assortment of skateboards

Assortment Planning & Management

    • Line plans to inform design team development process

    • SKU level targets by category/sub-category

    • Detailed unit and dollar plans by SKU and timeframe (e.g., week or month) as appropriate for business

    • Establish lifecycle statuses for all products, e.g., active, mark-down, discontinued, exit

    • Ensure a highly productive core assortment with optimal pricing and margin structures

    • Implement seasonal assortment reviews and rationalization to flag and manage aged, excess and unproductive inventory as well as provide recommendations on line adoption for seasonal styles

    • The Aged Inventory analysis provides key metrics about inventory status

    • Evaluate how long items are in the warehouse before being sold or utilized

    • Determine efficient storage and management of obsolete inventory

Tailor your assortment planning to revenue, margin, and growth goals with data-driven tools and processes. Optimize for product launch strategy, line planning, and product lifecycle management.

  • Leverage hindsighting and attribute analysis to develop or buy new products based on past successes

  • Establish budgets and prepare SKU plans for your design and development teams to launch productive assortments

Our partners

At Boon we believe in collaboration. We’re experts in merchandise planning, and deeply appreciate the support of our partners who are experts in industries crucial to the success of any retail business. To elevate your business outside the realm of demand planning, we highly recommend our partners.