Retailers and other supply chain organizations have long struggled with this decision. But, as anything else in life, black or white is not the right question. Pareto law might be a more appropriate approach. What is that minimum set of valuable enablers that, when properly combined and leveraged, will maximize my Gross Margin Return on Inventory/Investment ? NRF has proposed and heavily promoted their recommended approach for decades now: Efficient Consumer Response and, particularly, Category Management, which actually focuses on that most valuable 20%: Maximizing product availability at the stores and B2C delivery centers, reducing out of stocks and shrinkage; Managing assortment smartly so we better match consumer needs and preferences; Maximizing turnover speed and sell the merchandise before you pay it to vendors; Get the most revenue and profits out of sales, offering optimum and competitive regular prices to each consumer; Make sure promotions are what consumers expect (not just what brands want to push out) and make sure the promoted products are the right ones, making sure the product is at the shelves without causing bad consumer experience of out of stocks in promotions. Something like this? www.juicemantics.com
