SAP solutions help streamline merchandise life-cycle processes, so retailers can quickly execute strategic merchandise decisions based on a shared view of shopper demand – to achieve profitable growth.

SAP for Retail supports the key activities involved in merchandise life-cycle management, including:

• Strategic planning – With SAP for Retail, you can ensure your planning processes are integrated and driven by the same company goals. For example, you can feed your high-level financial targets, brand plans, and new store-opening plans into SAP for Retail's SAP Merchandise and Assortment Planning application, where high-level budgets are distributed to product categories.
• Merchandise and assortment planning/category business planning – SAP solutions enable retailers to define the merchandise hierarchies and store/channel plans with place holders for new styles. Performance measures can be assigned for purchase, sales, and margin targets at all levels of the hierarchy/channel/zone/location.
• Promotion planning – SAP for Retail can help you understand how shoppers respond to promotions, so you can create appealing promotions without sacrificing margin. Robust what-if functionality shows the impact of different strategies to the bottom line – helping you negotiate vendor-funded deals. Once defined, specific offer details can be used in advertisements, signage, shelf labels, and displays. Performance details are immediately available to support execution of vendor rebates.
• Life-cycle pricing – SAP for Retail helps you manage the trade-offs between revenue, profit, and price image, and set prices that support a retailer's brand strategy. By analyzing shopper demand and price sensitivities to channel, location, and SKU level, price changes that meet your strategic goals can be selected. An easy-to-use interface helps you build comprehensive pricing rules, minimize sub-optimal pricing, communicate pricing strategies, and coordinate promotion and markdown pricing.
• Markdown planning – SAP for Retail supports end-of-season pricing decisions to reach sales goals. With markdown recommendations that adhere with the rules you set up, daily recommendations can be made based on the most current sales information – ensuring markdowns are performed only when absolutely necessary.

Merchandise life-cycle management is enabled with applications such as:

• SAP Merchandising for Retail and Wholesale Distribution
• SAP Merchandise and Assortment Planning
• SAP Price Optimization for Retail
• SAP Markdown Optimization

To find out how SAP can help you improve your merchandise life-cycle management, please contact us.