Ll Bean Inc Item Forcasting and Inventory Management

For people who wants to buy clothing in Myer, they usually go shopping with friends or family, so they could get some suggestions from others. When people making decisions of buy new clothes, usually they have little knowledge of how the cloth will looks like on them, so they need to try them on, this process often take a long time. The influcences at the points of sales of these products will be whether customers like the style or not, the suggestions from friends, families and salesperson, and whether customers think the product worth the price (Rahman, Rahaman, Jensen, & Gällstedt 2008, p. 42-43).

Evaluate the role their inventory plays in the company’s performance, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

The product management team asks you for an analysis of the stock-out probabilities for various order quantities, an estimate of the profit potential, and to help make an order quantity recommendation. Specialty expects to sell Weather Teddy for $24 based on a cost of $16 per unit. If inventory remains after the holiday season, Specialty will sell all surplus inventory for $5 per unit. After reviewing the sales history of similar products, Specialty’s senior sales forecaster predicted an expected demand of 20,000 units with a .95 probability that demand would be between 10,000 and 30,000 units.

By 1906 Sears was operating the largest mail order plant in the world, but that necessitated that the company’s focus shift from design dominance to products and process. Sears has entered the transitional stage of the Abernathy - Utterback Model. Sears is tasked with the need to handle mass orders economically and efficiently, and develops the ‘time scheduling system’, which brings chaos to the mail order industry and defines a significant core competence (Sears Archive, 2012). Around the same time, Sears’s customers are shifting their focus to quality, which drives the need to replace the fancy Sears catalog with a factual based catalog. Sears’s core competencies are innovation, mail order process, quality products, perceived value, and factual based advertisement (catalog).

For this growing population, we can track the merchandises and find out what kind of items the customers spend money on. We gather the data and analyze the pattern and what style the customer is looking for. We send e-mails to the customers when getting new items that fit the customer’s dress preference with style suggestions.

L.L. Bean is currently in a market where there are few stores that dominate. They face competition from companies such as Columbia, North Face, REI & Timberland. In some cases these companies may offer a wider range of products, more appealing design and higher quality. Where L.L. Bean stands out is there in country manufacturing and Discovery School classes. Not only are they selling outdoor gear they are offering outdoor classes as well. The way I look at it is, they offer a product and a way to test it out at the same time so you know whether you are buying a good quality product. But this however may still not be enough to succeed. Below I have included a list of L.L. Bean’s competitors.

Next, following the framework, the company must evaluate whether the product will be successful. Researching the company’s competition as well as the average market share could give insight to whether certain styles of high-end children’s clothing would be successful in the current market. Also, researching potential threats to business will be useful in designing a product that, both, fills the needs of the customers and offers features that can be protected by either a patent or trade

As three of America's leading retailers, Home Depot, Nordstrom, and Cold Water Creek, are responsible for over $80 billion in annual sales. Retail industry analysts look for commonalities in inventory management reporting in order to track company's ability to move inventory and maximize pricing strategies and avoid having to discount obsolescent inventory thus affecting profit. Through analysis of a company's inventory management ratio, outside investors and inside management can track the number of times each year a company turns its inventory. Industries such as retail are extremely sensitive to inventory management as many retail products have short shelf lives due to cyclical inventory and technological advances.

After choosing the shirt style, the customers can then give us their original designs in either hard copy or soft copy to print on shirt. We will print in on shirt according to the customer’s requests and needs without changing their original ideas. However, we will still give suggestions to the customers provided that they are asking for our opinions. Besides, if the customers short on design idea, they can choose from pre-existing graphics or custom artwork. These pre-existing graphics or images can be viewed and ordered online in our official Website, providing customers with flexibility and convenience. Besides, we will have a comprehensive Website that will allow ordering a customer's home, or where ever they may

After the selling simulation we decided we will definitely restock the Black Lace Up Sandals, Champagne colored Clutch, the White Ripped Denim Pants, the T-Shirt Dress, Fur Vest, The Scoop Neck , The Mock Tank, and the Nude and Black Pumps. The things that we will not order again is the mustard colored Blazer w/ Zippers, Shap Cape Blazer , and the Fay Bermuda Shorts. We also have decided to reorder the Party Dresses like the Black Long Sleeve Mesh Stripe Dress and the Burgundy Long Sleeve Mock Turtleneck, but we will order less of them because they did not sell well. We will also order less of the plus sizes and less shoes sizes that are size 9 and up.As mentioned, we will restock all shoes and accessories included in the merchandise report but we will have more shoes sizes that range from 7 to 8. If we could go back we would change the merchandise mix to be lower for Dresses because not all of our dress sold as much as we would've liked. Our category percentage for Dresses was 20%, we will lower this to 15%. The merchandise mix percentage for Outerwear will remain the same at 15%. For the next stock turn we will order fewer of the plus sizes. As far as Shirts goes both tops we had in stock at the selling simulation sold pretty well.We will keep our merchandise percent the same for Shirts at 25%. For Accessories we will rise our merchandise mix percentage to 25% from 15% and we will lower our Bottoms percentage to 20% from 25%.

This trait can be leveraged to build systems on par with the new technologies. An addition of 25% of personnel, expert in modern technologies and equipments would enhance the ability of the firm to start an e-business system that would enable LBS Textiles make a global presence, capture the national and international markets. Increase in the number of clients that LBS Textiles can reach out to will increase the volume of trade. The increase in trade brings in direct returns to the company. The expansion of markets and increase in clients indirectly increases the volume of sales and aid in boosting the returns to LBS Textiles. The company needs to evaluate the demand of the various demographics across the globe and develop newer attractive designs. The Research of newer technologies or designs to attract newer markets and wider demographics will incur expenses but the successful outcomes when channelized through the development teams produce the actual product for direct revenue generation.

The writer considers the cost of Mid-Town’s products to be a major concern. Customers typically want the highest quality for the most economical cost. The article states that Mid-Town’s pricing is higher than some mail-order companies. Ron Chamber’s must leverage Mid-Town’s overall value proposition against the lower-priced mail order option. The writer believes the best strategy to accomplish this would be a needs satisfaction presentation (Johnston & Marshall, 2016).

The U.S. women’s apparel industry market is mature, given that the average growth rate from 2005 to 2007 was 4.66%. Within the industry, there are 6 categories of clothing in which companies compete: haute couture, designer, bridge, better, moderate, and budget. Each category targets customers with different needs and different price ranges, with haute coutre and designer clothing ranging upwards from $10,000 and moderate

My decision is to find a methodology of calculating more accurate demand and supply figures to address the unpredictable world of short life cycle fashion. A good decision would result in minimizing the order cycle lead time necessary to produce the ski wear and have it delivered to retailers in time by establishing a method that would ensure each prediction as a personal decision making process and not the thoughts of a few strong-willed individuals. Another criterion would be by gathering data that would provide clear indication how end-consumers would respond to the company’s current line. A good solution would enable Obermeyer to decide on where and when to source each product (China vs. Hong Kong vs. an alternative

In addition, the price of this new product will remain on the higher priced side because of results from a survey that concluded no difference in price options. Consumers that are interested in this type of product will be willing to pay a higher price point for it. However, Classic needs to keep in mind that with a higher pricing strategy, the ability to purchase a second shirt is reduced. With the high price of these shirts, Classic ultimately can provide a higher margin for the trade at about 45% keeping them in the same boat as Classic in wanting to promote the product to get the best return. Classic has the advantage of low production costs due to the state of the art offshore production hub in the Dominican Republic. Classic also has an advantage of economies of scale from high volume, low SKU