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The 7thOnline web-driven approach to assortment planning provides immediate improvements in sales, customer service, fill rates and inventory management. These tools allow for real-time collaboration... and help our brands to effectively manage global demand.

Martin Schneider
VP & CIO
VF Corporation

7thOnline Assortment Planning

Every merchant is challenged with how to effectively plan and execute unique account-level assortments that match local consumer demand. In order to determine the styles, colors, and sizes of merchandise to deliver to each store for each delivery period, merchants must consider the financial and strategic objectives of both their management and their retail accounts, historical performance, current trends, local demographics, and production schedules. Once plans are finalized, vendors must ensure that they can deliver product on time to fulfill retail orders. Because vendors are often forced to commit to production in advance of receiving orders from retailers, it is critical to gather an accurate and aggregated picture of demand as early in the process as possible.

7thOnline Assortment Planning enables vendors to overcome these challenges and to maximize the profitability of assortments with its intelligent visibility platform built specifically for the apparel, footwear, and accessories community. The solutions enable vendors to create optimal localized assortments (for key items, fashion, and replenishment) by retailer by SKU by store, with built-in optimization engines for sizing and assortment breadth and depth. The real-time production sales reconciliation capabilities provide an instantaneous snapshot of total company demand vs. supply at any time prior to, during and post market appointments. The collaborative capabilities enable internal users and trading partners to align business processes and strategies and to share up-to-date information 24/7. With the comprehensive reporting tools, management has complete visibility into all planning activity to ensure that plans are aligned with corporate objectives and to react to opportunities and challenges as they arise.

KEY CAPABILITIES
Input or upload financial and unit plans Build and analyze visual and quantitative cluster/door-level assortments by season for key items, fashion, and replenishment Ability to import LY POS data for use in planning & reporting Build assortments using selling patterns of previous year's bestselling styles Ability to create Master Assortments either top-down or bottom-up Automatically generate initial plan based on historical data and defined parameters Auto-populate placeholder assortment plans with product information and images Access up-to-date product data and images (automatically updated in real-time across all plans as information changes) Replenishment planning by style/color by retailer, based on LY POS data, to be aggregated with fashion buys View and compare plans to retailers' financial and unit plans Collaborate on assortments via the system at any time as business needs dictate, both internally and with trading partners Comprehensive industry-specific reporting tools Aggregate planned and booked units across all accounts and channels of distribution to compare against inventory position View real-time available-to-sell by style, size, group and class Apply optimal size scales to each order Full visual capabilities including multiple image views and swatches Generate EDI purchase orders with one-click Access assortment plans and analyses 24/7, from any Internet browser Import and export to and from Excel

KEY CAPABILITIES

Input or upload financial and unit plans
Build and analyze visual and quantitative cluster/door-level assortments by season for key items, fashion, and replenishment
Ability to import LY POS data for use in planning & reporting
Build assortments using selling patterns of previous year's bestselling styles
Ability to create Master Assortments either top-down or bottom-up
Automatically generate initial plan based on historical data and defined parameters
Auto-populate placeholder assortment plans with product information and images
Access up-to-date product data and images (automatically updated in real-time across all plans as information changes)
Replenishment planning by style/color by retailer, based on LY POS data, to be aggregated with fashion buys
View and compare plans to retailers' financial and unit plans
Collaborate on assortments via the system at any time as business needs dictate, both internally and with trading partners
Comprehensive industry-specific reporting tools
Aggregate planned and booked units across all accounts and channels of distribution to compare against inventory position
- View real-time available-to-sell by style, size, group and class
Apply optimal size scales to each order
Full visual capabilities including multiple image views and swatches
Generate EDI purchase orders with one-click
Access assortment plans and analyses 24/7, from any Internet browser
Import and export to and from Excel

CLIENT RESULTS
Higher sell-thru/reduced markdowns through better assortments at the door and size level Additional sales opportunities realized due to demand visibility gained earlier in market (up to 25%) Reduced end-of-season excess inventory (up to 50%) Increased order fill rates (up to 15%) Production demand reconciliation 4 - 6 weeks earlier Shorter cycle times by up to 4 weeks Earlier order commitments from retailers by 1 - 4 weeks Decreased error rates (50 - 80%) Reduced administrative costs associated with order processing and other clerical activities (30 - 80%) Up to 95% reduction in time spent creating reports Ability to shift from cut-to-forecast to cut-to-order Optimization algorithms solve for maximum profitability seeding unit plans at the store/color/size level

CLIENT RESULTS

Higher sell-thru/reduced markdowns through better assortments at the door and size level
Additional sales opportunities realized due to demand visibility gained earlier in market (up to 25%)
Reduced end-of-season excess inventory (up to 50%)
Increased order fill rates (up to 15%)
Production demand reconciliation 4 - 6 weeks earlier
Shorter cycle times by up to 4 weeks
Earlier order commitments from retailers by 1 - 4 weeks
Decreased error rates (50 - 80%)
Reduced administrative costs associated with order processing and other clerical activities (30 - 80%)
Up to 95% reduction in time spent creating reports
Ability to shift from cut-to-forecast to cut-to-order
Optimization algorithms solve for maximum profitability seeding unit plans at the store/color/size level

Contact Us
Corporate Headquarters: 24 W 40th Street, 11th Floor New York NY 10018 Tel: 800.775.7571 212.997.1717 Fax: 212.997.1133 sales@7thonline.com support@7thonline.com info@7thonline.com
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