Our approach involves evaluating how skillful the brand or retailer is in the process of blending and balancing design and data...optimism and pragmatism...art and science.
Merchandising Metrics is a set of disciplines and thought processes arrived at by the partners after years of experience in the apparel business.
It's the left brain cooperating with the right brain.
It's fulfilling the creative and emotional aspects of the Brand Promise with an awareness for exposure to RISK. It’s taking the right amount of RISK to enable great Storytelling, but not so much that there is undue margin exposure/
It’s pressure testing the key components of the business in the context of a bell curve paradigm:
Brand Promise - What is it? Is it product, price, positioning, presentation, path to purchase? What customer with what competition?
Bullseye - What are you aiming at? What customer, demographic, psychographic...? What competition with what voids and vulnerabilities and no moat...? What are the 1-3 words that can instantly bring you back into focus?
Risk Mitigation - Creating the right balance between low-risk Basics and Key Items and high-risk Fashion and Novelty Items. Item & Classification Balance + Color Management + Flow.
5R Product - Right Product, Right Price, Right Place, Right Time, Right Quantity.
Storytelling - How does the portfolio of 5R Product translate into a Story…??? How long does the Story live? How does it transition into the next Story…???
Seasonal Conversion - Meticulous management of the FLOW of 5R Product. Buying to minimize the level of end of season residue inventory of high risk fashion and novelty product that will require deep markdowns to clear.
Flow - What + Where + When. Establishing a different shelf life for different risk levels.
Calendar Management - Establishing appropriate entry and exit points. Life span, life cycle. Seasonality. Product development T/A calendar? Appropriate lead times? Testing?
Color Management - Color Balance and Flow. Low, medium and high risk. Balance at a moment in time and over time. Seasonality. Timing and content of Flow over multiple regions and climates.
Focus and Discipline - How are boundaries set?
Best use of Space - Understanding size, shape, and configuration of the space. Capacity. Options for presentation. What are the constraints that impact the storytelling?
Dosage - How much is enough? Challenging each element and it’s contribution, pro and con, in how that element contributes to both profitability and storytelling. Understanding the constraints of the physical space in managing all the moving parts of the storytelling.
Scarcity - Creating and managing SCARCITY. LIMITED EDITION thinking. Breadth of offering. Depth of the buy.
Listening and learning skills - What are they and how do you master them? What's the process? TESTING? Feedback loop from the field? Curiosity? Humility? How does learning elevate into KNOWLEDGE?
It means Filtering for all of the above.
We're available for different kinds of assignments:
Merchandising & Branding Projects: Your Brand Promise needs refining, clarity, focus. Your product needs alignment with the Brand Promise. Your constraints are holding you back. How can they be lived with, managed, and ultimately overcome? What is your process for getting to 5R product...???
Our mantra is KNOW, PLAN, SOLVE, EXECUTE, LEARN. You may have problems in each bucket that require a series of solutions.
Financial & Investment Projects: You have a specific assignment with clearly defined deliverables and a set due date. Most of these are research-based or due diligence related reports. Your brand relative to the competition and relative to the market at large.
What are the dynamics at work?
If you're considering an acquisition, you'll want an unvarnished, arms-length portrait of the health and viability of the target business. This is an assessment from a merchandising and brand status point of view. We evaluate the skill level of the team. Planning, Merchandising, Design, In-Store Execution.
Managing Color = Managing Emotions