We are over a week into the most significant month of the financial year, halfway through the spring summer season and with 2019 quickly approaching we ask…

Are you taking time to look beyond the fog of the challenging retail landscape and delivering the fundamentals to trade your business?

Reacting to your customer trends and demand, optimising sales, minimising your markdown and managing your risk and opportunities are the foundations of retailing and the pillars of our Online Academy In-season Management course.

These are no doubt familiar concepts, yet as we continue to adapt to our environment; have these best practices slipped down our growing priority list?

Have we embedded these vital skills and processes into our teams and trainees?

Are we just too busy battling uncertainty?

 We’ve broken down our Online Academy In-season Management course to provide a checklist for you to consider. Our list covers the three strategic steps of In-season Management; Evaluate, Forecast and Act. Are these steps top of mind in your organisation?

1) Evaluate your performance
• Review internal and external factors against the season expectations
• Review performance weekly, monthly, cumulatively and the balance to achieve
• Quantify customer learnings

2) Forecast the season
• Re-forecast the WSSI and key program lines implementing the learnings
• Model any variances against the plan
• Analysis outcomes and outline the implications for sales, stock and profit
• Discuss the results as a team, committing to a review process and timeframe

3) Decide on appropriate action, act quickly and don’t delay.
• Stock actions – purchase, cancel, hold, rephrase, alter distribution channels or store grades
• Price actions – plan/enhance promotions, price match, permanently markdown
• Relationships actions – leverage your relationships. Trade as a team, work with suppliers, communicate with stores, collaborate with marketing, optimise visual merchandising and effectively manage the distribution centre’s expectation
• Action learnings – from this season and implement these learnings into the next

If you or your team would benefit from building the skills and knowledge required to implement this list, please see our website or contact us directly for more information about our online academy.