Merchandise Planning & Warehouse Management

If you have any doubt in understanding the word Merchandized Planning then let's understand its meaning first. Choosing, buying, controlling, exhibiting, and pricing the products in a way that maximises returns on investment, adds value to the brand name by meeting consumer wants and prevents the formation of excess inventory is known as merchandise planning. For optimising your inventory management operations and making sure that the products are available at the right location and at the accurate time, you can also employ suitable product inventory software.   

Key Highlights

· What is the definition of Merchandised Inventory and Merchandised Planning?

· Reasons to conduct Merchandised Planning.

· How WAAS (Warehouse As A Service) is aiding in the planning?

· Most important functions of WAAS.

· How to achieve efficient warehouse management through storage planning

· Importance of WMS in Merchandised Planning.

· What’s an efficient Assortment Plan?

· Conclusion

What’s Merchandized Inventory?

The account listed on a balance sheet that displays the total cost of all the goods still available for sale is called merchandise inventory. However, there is still a core merchandising process that the majority of businesses adhere to and that they centre their strategy upon. Additionally, it is simple to understand and apply the phases in merchandising planning.

Why Merchandized Planning?

Modern retailers might not ask this question since they understand the importance of merchandise planning; nonetheless, for new players in the market or for those who have never thought about it seriously, here are a few reasons why you should plan your merchandise.

· You can stock your warehouse more efficiently.

· Merchandise Planning results in wise inventory investment.

· Fewer labour costs as less inventory in the warehouse to manage.

· Adds value to the business with no out-of-stock and overstock warehouses

· Lesser inventory maintenance expenses

· Businesses don't need to provide any further discounts to get rid of outdated inventory.

· As more things are available for purchase and there are fewer markdowns, your revenues rise.

· Replenishment and stocking are done efficiently due to sophisticated inventory management systems.

WAAS – Warehouse As A Service

A system like WASS at AWL India increases productivity in warehouse operations. It is a highly sophisticated WMS (Warehouse Management System) integrated into 10 million sq. ft of AWL India’s warehouses in India. Enhance warehouse operations and inventory flows so businesses can consistently deploy the appropriate products in the appropriate locations. Let’s check the four most important functions of WAAS.

1. Picking, Packing and Shipping

2. Receiving, Ticketing, and Inventory Management

3. Options for Configurable Cross-docking

4. Tracking, Monitoring, and Communicating

A Precise Storage Plan and Intelligent Warehouse Management

After deciding how much money will be invested in buying and stocking the products, it is then necessary to decide the number of different products to store after predicting the future market demands and taking into consideration the season inventory. A precise storage plan focuses on accurately stocking the items in the quantities needed for each product line. Businesses should know the exact customer demand, using advanced warehousing management systems like WAAS to carry out the right stock plan. You would also need to set levels of the amount needed for each type of consumer option. The money is then allotted for each sort of item in the plan after the precise demand has been determined. Advanced inventory management by WAAS provides detailed insights on warehouse processes and stocks so that businesses can accurately predict future demands, save cost on overstocking and avoid losses due to stockouts.

Importance of Warehousing in Merchandise Planning

The warehousing department is in charge of keeping track of inventories, receiving and despatching products, and updating the other departments about receiving and delivering the consignments. Storage facilitation directly affects the merchandise planning, which provides knowledge of the amounts of goods still available in the store. The most precious resources for a business have always been product inventory and shelf space. The best items now can be identified using analytics and comparing the previous data. Utilizing items, shelf storage, store fixtures, and performance data, specialists at renowned logistics and warehouse management companies like AWL India use strong optimization tools to help retailers build localized assortments based on clusters and optimize space use. With distinctive market-based, customer-based, trend-based, and price-based assortments, AWL India assists businesses in developing balanced merchandise planning strategies and creating a variety of assortment blends.

An Efficient Assortment Plan

Brands have learned to become more sophisticated as a result of the increasing variety of their products, styles and changing consumer needs. Inefficient planning and purchasing for the assortment can lead to overstocking or understocking of products at the warehouse level, which results in ineffective distribution and delay in fulfilment. Businesses could use data to create an intelligent assortment plan using advanced Automation and Artificial Intelligence to achieve optimal warehousing allocation with an end-to-end merchandising system. The system provides precise decision-making with the use of product clustering, store-style rating, the addition of seasonality, and visual merchandising, all while utilizing hundreds of algorithms. The constant availability of WAAS (Warehouse As A Service) is another benefit of a clever item allocation strategy and WMS (Warehouse Management System).

Conclusion

Investments in new technology, complete automation in processes, and robotics serve as the foundation for well-equipped warehouses like the one at AWL India called WAAS. They are consistently growing their hybrid systems, automated sorters, and AGVs (automated guided vehicles) along with robotics arms and AI-enabled software, all of which provide improved picking efficiencies, and storing and replenishing capabilities. The complete digitization at the WMS at AWL India is supported by the intelligent approach toward generating a great IT environment within the company operations, which includes world-class warehouse management systems. These systems give you integration capabilities, visibility, and enhanced accuracy, enabling you to be flexible and quick to react to supply chain events. Hence, a great help in unsurpassable merchandised planning for great profits.

Also Read: Why Private Warehouse in India is the Best Option?