Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right in Footwear Retail, Don’t You Think?

Shoes are one of the most beloved items people purchase for themselves and their near and dear ones every year. In 2021, the U.S. alone imported over 2.4 billion pairs of shoes and its annual sales topped $100.7 billion in revenue. Footwear retail has changed dramatically during the recent years – where brands have to cater to customer expectations based on the latest trends and styles that consumers are looking to buy. Post the global pandemic of 2019-2020, just like other verticals in the retail industry, footwear retail too is facing uphill challenges like how to adapt to rapid consumer demand shifts from the pandemic, discounting, how to develop and implement speed to market strategies, and how to manage and replenish store inventory real-time.

Each year, footwear companies invest several million dollars in their store staff and platforms to ensure they deliver high-quality shoes in a timely manner. Amid all the changes and challenges, footwear retailers continue to survive through the use of innovative and robust strategies both online and in shoe stores. In fact, the footwear industry has one of the most robust supply chains in the world.

ETP Group has repeatedly delivered both business and technology benefits to footwear retailers across the Asia Pacific, India and the Middle East. One of the largest fashion footwear retailer in the region with a wide network of hundreds of prime locations offering a mix of local and international designs had the following business needs:

• Inventory visibility across the supply chain
• Scalability of different concepts and number of stores
• User-friendly POS for faster customer service with an integrated CRM system
• Accurate cash management at the stores
• Recognition of loyal customers and customer profiling
• Reduce cut-size of footwear at stores and increase the fill rate with faster inventory turns
• Managing shop-in-shop inventory for the brand to ensure accurate replenishment

ETP V5 Omni-channel Retail Solutions implemented for the brand include ETP Store, ETP Accelerator, ETP Omni-channel Connect and ETP Integrator. The implementation seamlessly integrates all the retail processes of the brand including showroom sales, pricing, stock management, loyalty management, campaign and promotions management, repairs process, customer profiling and CRM, and cash management to name a few with their legacy ERP.

This implementation of ETP V5 delivers substantial business and technology benefits to the brand, such as –

• A colour/size/fit matrix for managing multiple sizing as well as
• Scanning of SKUs in pairs to avoid item mismatch at the time of billing
• Reduced pilferage and cut-size by tagging high-value footwear
• Fulfill online/e-commerce orders from store inventory and allow for any store returns for both in-store and online purchases
• Have a single customer ID across all retail channels to enable unified loyalty management
• Avoid lost sales by providing ‘endless aisle’ capability in-store to service customers better
• Complete inventory visibility and control with seamless data integration
• Capturing of reasons for every stock movement to analyse and provide for faster inventory turns
• Manage promotions, gift voucher, sales return and credit notes to provide high level of customer service across all the stores
• Manage EOSS (end of season sale) efficiently; implement promotions quickly to complement merchandise planning
• Display of line level and header level discount during billing, educating sales staff to promote sales
• Handle complex local tax structure across all locations using charge model functionality of ETP and track accurate cost and margins across locations
• Manage third party brands. Handle direct delivery to stores and seamless integration with vendors for timely replenishment
• Manage customer service levels with regards to after sales service for repairs at store level
• Banking transaction and cash management using ETP to ensure tight control over the collections at each store location

ETP has enabled several retailers achieve greater business efficiency in their quest to be a leader in the footwear market by improving inventory visibility and control to facilitate decisions on store replenishments, and enhancing customer loyalty and experience through improved marketing and promotions.