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Wholesale Planning Simplified for Retailers

30 Jan 2024

Optimize inventory productivity across all channels with JustEnough v2023.4

Wholesale channels are no longer a backup channel for retailers. Smart retailers are planning their wholesale channels just as strategically as they leverage storefronts and e-commerce. The challenge for retailers is that many planning tools treat wholesale as just another channel, missing the nuances that effective wholesale planning requires. In ToolsGroup’s latest JustEnough release, JE v2023.4, we have advanced our wholesale planning capabilities so that users can explicitly address key planning functions needed to fully optimize inventory productivity. We’ve also added critical new features across the platform to allow for higher inventory productivity— no matter your channel or market.

The Wholesale Challenge in the Amazon Age

Amazon, eBay, Alibaba and other online marketplaces are becoming critical channels for even the most traditional retailers. Retailers need to create plans for these non-traditional sites, as well as other wholesale channels, but often tools for retail planning and execution fail to align with the unique metrics and naming conventions used in wholesale. Merchants and planners lose valuable time trying to modify plans to deliver effective strategies for these channels. Even worse, the misalignment between the ways that wholesale needs to be planned and a tool intended to plan for more traditional retail channels creates inventory inefficiencies.

ToolsGroup had noticed the difficulties posed by the nuances unique to wholesale and has been adding features to bridge this gap. In our latest release, JE 2023.4, has updated modules to optimize critical inventory planning and execution tasks within wholesale, using additional wholesale-specific functionalities. JustEnough delivers optimal plans whether a retailer simply needs to allocate stock and set appropriate sales expectations for inventory to be fulfilled by online marketplaces like Amazon or Walmart or they are expanding into a broader wholesale strategy.

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How You Can Leverage These New Features to Further Optimize Wholesale Inventory Performance

While JustEnough solutions have long enabled wholesale planning, this latest release embeds specifically defined Wholesale Accounts beside retail functionality to be used in our Merchandise Financial Planning, Assortment Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment modules. In order to support the growing need for retailers to plan in the wholesale space, all JustEnough retail functionality has been enhanced to better support wholesale functions.

New wholesale accounts increase inventory productivity on wholesale channels by:

Supporting wholesale-specific metrics, naming conventions and functionalities that make it easier to adopt
Enabling planners to aggregate Total Company plans to include both Retail and Wholesale
Easing movement of planned stock, sales, and other metrics as demand shifts from one channel to another
Allowing for revisions during the execution phase, such that inventory can be sent where it will achieve the highest possible profit
Optimizing wholesale to the same level of granularity and accuracy as other retail channels

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Other ways JE v2023.4 enhances your inventory productivity

In addition to the latest advancements to ToolsGroup’s wholesale planning tools, JE v2023.4 contains additional enhancements critical to our goal of delivering the highest possible inventory productivity for our customers. The following enhancements are also being released with JE v2023.4:

Consider supply constraints when generating orders: JustEnough optimizes your inventory mix to maximize sales and overall profitability, but suppliers don’t have infinite capacity to fulfill orders, especially amidst the disruptions in modern supply chains. Now, JustEnough Retail users can consider those supplier constraints when recommending inventory planning decisions, so that you can optimize your stock according to what’s actually available, not just what would be best in a vacuum.
Capture additional trends earlier in the planning process, so MFP delivers a more profitable assortment: One thing that makes JustEnough forecasts deliver optimal inventory productivity is its granularity. Retailers can forecast down to the SKU-location level for each day, which delivers a better assortment in stores. When creating financial plans, however, this granularity can actually get in the way. Now, planners will be able to also generate highly accurate sales projections using AI at the MFP level, not tied to any location. This gives a greater visibility to the overall performance of inventory during planning stages, untethered from location considerations. A granular view is available, but now planners have another option for merchandise financial planning.
Plan promotions more flexibly during assortment planning: Customers are increasingly price sensitive. They are always looking for a deal. Retailers need to account for this behavior during assortment planning. ToolsGroup has made it even easier to plan for discounts using its new flexible plannable metric: AUT Discount %. AUT Discount % allows a user to assign a discount which is not otherwise defined through specific promotions, taking that price sensitivity into account in AP—and ensuring a higher-performing assortment.

With the high costs of working capital today, retailers can’t afford to have inventory that underperforms. Through the enhancements in JE 2023.4, ToolsGroup empowers customers to continually achieve a high inventory productivity from the earliest planning stages.