Part 3: buying smarter – balancing art and science: how does your buying scale tip?

Welcome to part three of our Buying Smarter, Faster, Easier series where we share our thoughts on how to buy smarter to increase profitability.

Balancing the art and science of the buy is fundamental to retail. With technological advancements, the decision-making pendulum has swung from an art-based perspective to that of a scientific demand forecast. Merchants now have the opportunity to rely on bigger and better data, advanced analytics, and machine learning.

The important role of science in buy decision making is not to be discounted, but have the scales tipped too far? RSR’s Paula Rosenblum and Steve Rowen recently posed the following questions:

• “Have merchants lost touch with the importance of product innovation?
• Can merchants react quickly enough to changing market conditions?
• Can technology support what is starting to feel like a lost art?”*

The role of the merchant continues to evolve. Buying right requires tools that balance art and science effectively for profitable buy decision making. With daVinci, merchants eliminate manual, duplicate tasks which frees time for more critical tasks, such as staying abreast of fashion trends, creating test buys, and visualizing how assortments are coming together for their customers.

daVinci Assortment Solutions gives your artists and scientists a collaborative platform where the information flow among merchants, planners and managers is automated. This ensures everyone has instant visibility to a single version of the truth allowing your teams to see plan updates, corporate decisions and changes as they happen.

As the only software provider in the industry that specializes in assortment solutions, it makes sense that daVinci was the first to respond to the agile management culture. We have been helping retailers and wholesalers streamline processes and maximize their inventory investments and profitability for over a decade.

To learn more, we invite you to take our 15-minute introductory presentation arranged at a time that is convenient for you. To set this up or chat about your assortment challenges with one of our business experts, please contact us at 1.888.PLAN.OTB or from this form.