News

Liz Pioneers Collaborative Assortment Planning

New York, NY - January 2005 - Liz Claiborne (LCI) is one of the visionary pioneers that have led the fashion industry in collaborative planning for merchandising and assortment planning. To date, LCI has streamlined the buyers' process and the accuracy of the initial assortment plan, taken significant time out of the order placement cycle, and taken most of the tedious calculation work of its retail customers' buyers. "Buyers no longer need a calculator!" said Anne Cosini, VP e-Commerce/Customer Service at LCI.

This specialized version of collaborative planning entails a real-time electronic product and image presentation, real-time merchandising report calculations and report generation, a single version of the truth for retail buyers and consumer goods account execs, automatic micro-merchandising by store, and one-button electronic order integration. The process typically cuts over two weeks of delay out of the order process, which can allow the manufacturer to fine-tune inventory/production plans according to a truer view of actual customer demand. LCI's approach entails a system hosted by 7thOnline to link retailers with manufacturers for collaborative assortment planning.

To date, LCI's progress has gone far beyond proof-of-concept pilots. LCI has rolled out collaborative assortment planning and streamlined buy-sell merchandising processes involving its core apparel brands at all top-tier department store accounts. Currently, LCI is bringing the collaborative planning process to other large specialty retailers. The company is also expanding the range of LCI brands in the collaborative planning process to cover all LCI apparel brands. The next stage will be expanding coverage to remaining non-apparel brands. "We have a pilot underway with our handbag division," added Cosini.

"For us, VICS has always been the source for the guidelines and parameters to conduct our business efficiently," continued LCI's Anne Cosini. "When we formed the consortium with KSA to create this repeatable collaborative assortment planning process, VICS guidelines were critical. You can't create a new repeatable process without standards, and for that you need VICS."

About 7thOnline -- 7thOnline provides comprehensive inventory and assortment planning solutions specifically targeted to the unique planning, buying and ordering processes of the global apparel, footwear, and accessories community. 7thOnline's web-centric solution suite encompasses visual and quantitative merchandising and assortment planning tools, powerful analytical and optimization engines, and automatic order transmission capabilities in multiple formats. 7thOnline's collaborative capabilities enable real-time sharing of key business information, both internally between colleagues and externally with trading partners, resulting in better-matched supply and demand. Customer results include higher sell-thru and lower markdowns through better assortments at the door level, better inventory matching due to earlier supply/demand visibility, shorter cycle times due to the streamlined process, and reduced operational costs resulting from significantly reduced administrative tasks and error rates.