Footwear company finds path to success through data

The challenge

Family-owned footwear company Deer Stags has been selling shoes for nearly a century. When they needed to step up their inventory management a few years back, they brought fashion industry veteran Alena Margolis on board as a consultant, later hiring her as General Merchandise Manager.

Without access to their retail data, “They didn’t know what they didn’t know,” said Margolis. But she’d met this business challenge before and knew exactly how to handle it.

In her experience, data was the key to evaluating product performance and managing inventory. To move forward, they had to get the data, look at it and use it to drive their decision-making.

The solution

The first thing she advised was for Deer Stags to implement an automated solution that could gather and analyze their data, SPS Analytics. Because so much of their business was online, it wasn’t until they aggregated the data that they could begin to see trends.

After gaining visibility into retail performance, they found a system to evaluate both their retail and wholesale invoicing which allowed them to incorporate their SPS data so they could look at both types of performance as they were making buying decisions.

Next, they hired a planner with sole responsibility for the data and oversight of the systems for planning and reporting. The new product performance report that comes out every single Monday on all the different accounts is a critical tool for business evaluation, and the key to understanding their customers.

“Listening to the story that the customer is telling you through the data is really where you can make an impact in your business, whether you’re a retailer or a wholesaler,” said Margolis.

The results

Today, Deer Stags not only has access to retail data at their fingertips, they’re led by it. Since stepping up their game with SPS, they’ve become data-driven, using sales data to inform their buying decisions and improve inventory management.

“[The reports] enable us to identify things faster than we would have otherwise, because we’re seeing this aggregation, and it’s helping us make informed buying decisions because we’re utilizing that information during our buy meetings to see trends.”

—Alena Margolis, General Merchandise Manager, Deer Stags

Because SPS Analytics reporting is delivered in their own product language, they’re able to incorporate their sell-through data directly into Safio, their demand planning and forecasting solution. With their new technology, they’re now able to evaluate products on the SKU level. They evaluate every single active SKU, every 30 days. That’s thousands of SKUs, with only one person doing it.

Breaking down these large datasets into actionable information is critical to drive business growth and maintain competitive advantage.

“It’s allowed us to be so much more productive in our inventory purchases. We are able to carry approximately 30% less inventory and do more business because we are so much more effective in our ability to manage by size and style.”

—Alena Margolis, General Merchandise Manager, Deer Stags

Deer Stags also used sales data insights to build a more profitable and strategic pricing structure throughout their business, including selling a core product at a higher price point without losing out on unit sales, while also introducing additional pricing tiers. This allowed them to diversify their line, differentiate by price and have a broader appeal.

These solutions also enabled them to eliminate the long tail, when unlimited online “shelf space” masked the buying of slow-moving products. With new insights into retail selling performance, they’ve optimized their stock-to-sales, assorting units by style and size to meet demand while keeping on-hand inventory lean. These data-driven insights help shape strategies with retailers, including optimizing inventory and size offerings to improve sales and customer satisfaction.

When it comes to making money, they’re turning inventory better, using less warehouse space and improving relationships with their manufacturers and retailers.

“Every single month we get better and better and better at it,” says Margolis. With a single source of aggregated data—and the tools to analyze it—they’re making informed, transparent decisions that are driving growth and paving a new path to a successful future.