Summary

• With traditional retail silos, product teams often do not have access to crucial customer data when in the planning phase of building an assortment. 

• By bringing customer segmentation data into your planning process, you can proactively create a more customer-centric strategy rather than reacting to this data after all of the work has been done.   

• AI-driven assortment planning software allows your product team to understand different customer segments and tailor your offerings for improved profitability.  

The Importance of Leveraging Customer Data – Upfront

Wouldn’t it be great if you could see whether your business’s profit came from five customers versus 500 customers? And, how much better would your performance be if you could build a collection specifically for that group? 

Traditionally, customer data is collected by customer teams – independently from the product team. 

As this is how things have always been done, you might not even realize your team is missing crucial information when planning, or that it’s possible to approach range building with better, more connected data. 

What if your product team had access to all of these customer insights before you started building next season’s range? 

Proactive Planning for a More Customer-Centric Range

Customer segmentation data can help you make proactive decisions at the planning stage of your process, rather than reactive decisions after you have stock in store & online and are already promoting it. 

But, because most retail businesses are organized in silos, product teams are often starved of this data. Without real-time customer data, you are really just building based on what you saw last year. 

While understanding historical performance is necessary for creating your next strategy, it is not sufficient for success. However, combining product performance metrics with customer segment data allows you to better plan your assortment for your best customers based on all the relevant info. 

Effective Assortment Planning Software

Utilizing a platform that connects these metrics means you can be more dynamic with understanding fluctuating customer segments and keeping track of your own customer engagement trends in near real-time.  

These insights will not only help you create more customer-centric and relevant assortments, but will also save you time and money. 

Imagine, for example, being able to immediately take a granular look at product performance by segment. You could identify what items are bestsellers and delve further into who is purchasing these products, ultimately revealing which segments are actually driving profit. Then, you could utilize the outliers to generate additional opportunities and sales. 

Maximize Profitability  

To become more customer-centric, you must consider which key metrics you aren’t currently using that you could incorporate into your planning phase, such as what products resonate with new customers, high- and low-profit customers, and loyal customers. 

For example, with connected data, you can answer crucial questions such as: 

1. What products are drawing in new customers, and how do you build on that for next season? 
2. How do you bring your customers into assortment decisions rather than just looking at traditional performance metrics? 
3. Are you splitting your range by the products you buy for loyal customers vs to attract new customers?  
4. What products are attracting lapsing customers? And what products re-engage these customers?  

Having access to these insights means you can increase AOV by planning the best collection based on your customers’ preferences. 

Planning Assortments Through the Lens of the Customer

A few ways you can utilize these connected insights include: 

Increasing Personalization

• Personalize customer content with your highest-profit customers in mind and use high-profit customers to influence marketing strategies. 
• For example, you can identify that your new customer purchases the standard black /grey trouser, but the high-profit customer purchases across the entire colorway. With this data, you can better inform and personalize ranges accordingly to drive profit. 

Creating Web or App Exclusives

• Assortment planning software can segment customer data by channel so you can understand which products resonate with your app, store, or ecommerce customers. 
• Using this info, you can now influence the online exclusive process and be more agile by testing and trialing online where your only restriction is warehouse space, then use your learnings to influence stores as well. 

Analyzing Basket Composition

• Combined customer and product data helps you better understand how certain customer segments build their baskets and which products they purchase together. This will enable you to maintain and update these key products as well as assist with cross-department collaboration. 
• You can use the basket combinations of your high-profit customers to help inform personalization strategies for customers in lower-profit cohorts. 

Conclusion

Planning assortments with actual customer data is the key to sustained growth and profitability in the retail sector. 

Embracing this connected data means you’re not just reacting to past performance, but proactively planning for future success based on true customer demand. This strategy enables you to identify and cater to your most profitable segments, personalize offerings, and make informed decisions that enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Luckily, EDITED’s Retail Intelligence Platform brings all of this data together in one place and highlights the most critical insights. Book a customer-based audit with us here to discover your most profitable customers and tangible ways you can more effectively plan for them.