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Quantum Retail Addresses Needs of Complex Supply Chains, eCommerce

By Anuradha Shukla
TMCnet Contributor

In the current sluggish economy, there is cutthroat competition in the retail sector, and retail companies struggle for survival. Merchandise management is important to a retailer's success because merchandise is the basis of retailing. Quantum Retail, a provider of the most advanced retail merchandise optimization systems currently available, has released the latest update to its core platform, Q.

The update provides advanced execution for complex supply chains, eCommerce, and enhanced order planning and forecasting that allows planners to manage at the day level for short life products and up 18 months in advance for long life products, with the ability to recalculate distributions based on the most recent localized demand data ensuring extremely accurate allocation and replenishment.

This core platform, Q gives flexibility in order planning and distribution for retailers with complex supply networks and methods, such as Vendor to National Distribution Center (DC), Vendor to Regional DC, National DC to Regional DC, etc. to move stock as quickly and efficiently as possible, reducing the risk of missing a sale due to unplanned circumstances. Q now supports direct to store orders and allows users to view order quantities by location in order to get the right quantity to every local store as soon as it is needed.

eCommerce integration enables retailers to easily manage and integrate eCommerce inventory, warehouse or vendor availability and distribution alongside physical store locations. This permits retailers to maintain availability, so that high demand products do not go out of stock either in-store or online.

Q system’s advanced order planning and forecasting feature allows planners to forecast and manage short life products at the day level while users can also change to a week view and manage forecasts and order plans for 18 months out for longer life products. Planners can also test "what-if" scenarios, with the ability to change quantities as late as time of receipt based on the most up to date demand data.

This means retailers are able to easily and accurately manage the real-time demand for their inventory all the way down to the local, individual store level with the Q system.