Hardlines

Introduction:

The hardlines market covers home improvement, autoparts, computer & electrical and category killers. AMP2 is uniquely equipped to serve this range of products for both bricks and mortar and on-line E-commerce channels. The market has consolidated over the last two decades and many groups now operate a range of different outlets to serve a wide range of customer segments and geographical areas. However, the most significant change has been the increasing domination of Wal-mart which now has over 8,000 stores worldwide and sales of US$405 Billion from 953 Million sq. ft of retail space. Today’s retail software needs to support many different go-to-market strategies. Store formats, business structures, customer differentiation, assortments, multiple retail and wholesale channels and competitor impacts must all be capable of great flexibility in a fast changing business and economic environment and where for most the impact of Wal-Mart is a constant challenge.

AMP2 is a product of its time attuned, to these important needs and challenging the old silo structures where pricing, promotions advertising and media, loyalty, marketing and category management are undertaken in different systems and often without knowledge of each other’s decisions and actions. As we enter this new decade of the 21st Century many retailers still don’t know the combined effect of all the parts of their go-to-market offer for a particular period or market. Even if they were to deploy the most advanced optimization on prices and promotion, if they haven’t brought these disparate systems and spreadsheets together in one system, they will still be operating sub-optimally.

Merchandising Philosophy:

The hardlines sector has adopted a variety of methods and processes to undertake its work. Most common has been the adoption of category management, a business philosophy to manage all of the marketing, merchandising, buying and selling activities of a retailer’s business more commercially. AMP2 helps retailers manage this business approach and makes it operational, bringing together the many functions that make up the overall buying and selling elements of retail. Some sections in the hardlines area have not adopted the category management approach but use other commercial management methods to provide financial analysis and rigor to their businesses: these are fully supported by AMP2.

Almost every major market has become very competitive in recent years irrespective of company size or format. This means that retailers must rethink the methods and processes they are using to operate their buying and selling activities. The need to make the most of a particular market or assortment has never been greater; the need to respond to competitor activity never more necessary. The low or even negative sales growth of the last two years, brought on by the worldwide economic downturn, puts particular pressure on the hardlines sector as disposable incomes have been squeezed. Add to this the ever constant nightmare of an expanding Wal-mart, and these factors working against the sector will severely challenge profitability for years to come. Retailers need to think about these consequences as we all fight even harder for each dollar or market share decimal point.

Application of Science:

Retail Express’s use of science and technology brings merchandising systems into this new decade, and properly supports category management and commercial management philosophies with their much greater focus on analysis and evaluation with a hardnosed commercial and financial approach. This is represented in AMP2 with the category P&L, which brings together the impact of all prices, markdowns, incentives, promotions, adverts, events, promotional displays, flyers, coupons, loyalty points, kiosks, mailers etc. into a real time simulation that understands the effect of each touch point on the customer and the interaction of different touch points. Thus AMP2 presents the category / merchandise manager with a financial go-to-market P&L before committing to the whole proposition so that it can tuned to obtain the best results. Of course this financial impact analysis is used in conjunction with the AMP2 optimization tools to achieve the best mix of the strategic positioning on price/promotions and best execution in regard to the competition and the market/budgets in the current week/period etc.,

AMP2 is the solution where science and merchandising meet – smarter science = better results.