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Retailers report 550-percent increase in the use of social media for merchandise planning

According to a survey released by Boston Retail Partners, retailers are focused on expanding their use of social media and technology solutions to deliver the products consumers want in a seamless shopping experience.

November 4, 2014

According to a survey released by Boston Retail Partners, retailers are focused on expanding their use of social media and technology solutions to deliver the products consumers want in a seamless shopping experience. BRP’s 2014 Merchandise Planning and Allocation Benchmark Survey uncovers windows of opportunity for retailers to optimize business processes and leverage advanced technology to enhance the effectiveness of merchandise planning and allocation decisions, the firm said.

"Effective merchandise planning and allocation processes are critical to success of selecting the right products, in the right quantities, for the right locations and at the right time. Many selling seasons have been won or lost through planning and allocation decisions," said Walter Deacon, principal, Boston Retail Partners. "While some retailers rely on very basic tools like spreadsheets to manage their merchandise planning processes, progressive retailers are leveraging sophisticated business intelligence and predictive analytics to further enhance merchandise planning processes and decisions."

Key findings that demonstrate the achievements of retailers leveraging technology to improve their merchandise planning processes include:

• Nearly 50 percent of retailers have integrated business processes and systems across channels;
• 31 percent of retailers utilize a single inventory across channels; and
• 26 percent of retailers have real-time visibility of in-store/online inventory.

Retailers are focused on these areas of improvement to enhance their assortments:

• 33 percent of retailers utilize CRM data to feed their business intelligence tools; and
• 39 percent of retailers use social media to facilitate planning within product development, a 550-percent increase over last year's social media analytics.