Nursery retailer, Baby Bunting, has increased stock availability and reduced inventory value in its stores as a result of a roll-out of RELEX Solutions’ suite of demand forecasting, replenishment, allocation, and promotion forecasting solutions across its nationwide network of 64 locations in Australia.
Baby Bunting’s business is heavily promotion driven, and one of its main challenges is managing inventory for holiday sales spikes and promotional events.
The lack of centralised supply chain planning meant its stores each had to manage their own orders through time-consuming manual processes.
In addition, stores were unable to base their orders on demand and so often over-ordered regular stock items. But this caused either price markdowns or under-ordered items and stockouts during promotions.
Baby Bunting, therefore, decided to centralise its planning to properly take control of inventory allocation, improve its supply chain, and also provide scalable support during a period of rapid growth for the business.
In a new three-minute video interview, Baby Bunting CIO Matt Rodda and Sarah Serle, General Manager of Merchandise, explain the positive results and benefits that their partnership with RELEX has delivered, including:
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A 7% improvement in stock availability up to 94%.
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An eight percent reduction in inventory value in like-for-like stores.
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The AI enabled system eliminated manual ordering, giving in-store staff more time to focus on customers and provide the service that Baby Bunting prides itself on.
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Automated ordering driven by demand forecasts has increased inventory accuracy for both in-store and online channels.
