Assortment management center for inventory and logistics management

A retailer's essential tool: the Assortment Management Center for inventory and logistics

In retail, especially across an extensive store network, products often remain as dead stock at one location while customers request the same products at another location but are told they are unavailable. 

To handle these logistics and analytical tasks promptly, Torgsoft provides the «Assortment Management Center» mode. 

Business owners most often ask Torgsoft implementation specialists the following practical questions: 

This mode provides the tools needed to address all these logistics challenges, turning raw statistics into a practical resource for making quick management decisions.

What is the «Assortment Management Center» and what is it used for?

The «Assortment Management Center» mode, located under Analysis - Assortment Management Center, is the program's analytics and logistics hub. It was initially designed primarily for clothing and footwear stores under the name «Model Assortment Management Center», but its capabilities were later expanded to support any products, including those without size variants.

The main purpose of this mode is to manage the assortment matrix promptly and distribute products efficiently according to customer preferences in different cities or retail locations.

The financial benefits of using this mode are clear for the business owner:

1. Reducing capital tied up in inventory: money is not locked into products gathering dust on store shelves.

2. Reducing losses caused by discounts: if seasonal products, such as winter boots, are not transferred in time to locations where they are selling, the owner may have to apply substantial discounts at the end of the season to clear the remaining stock.

Key features of the Assortment Management Center

To help business owners answer questions about stock balances, the program provides a flexible set of tools:

• Demand visualization using photos. Displaying products together with their photos allows the owner to assess demand trends at a glance and make decisions much faster than by reading product names or SKUs alone.

• Flexible quantity display. Users can switch between different ways of displaying product quantities: sizes only, sizes plus quantity, total quantity, or total quantity with a detailed breakdown. Those interested only in products with size variants can use the «Sized Products Only» switch.

• Color-coded product movement. Information is grouped by movement type and highlighted with different colors. For example, goods receipts are shown in red, receipts from returns and sales in blue, and stock receipts or outflows resulting from internal transfers in green.

• Customizing the «Stock In» and «Stock Out» columns. To address a frequent concern among business owners that transfers distort statistics, the developers added the «Documents Used to Generate "Stock In" and "Stock Out"» menu item. It allows users to configure the Stock Out column to display sales only, excluding internal transfers.

• Quick repricing and printing. Because assortment analysis often reveals a need to stimulate demand, users can change a product's price directly from this form by applying a discount or markdown and immediately print new labels.

• Removing outdated products from the database. Since all active products are intentionally included in the analysis, the mode provides a button for deactivating products. This allows products that are no longer used to be removed from the report.

Moving slow-selling stock between branches: step-by-step process

The most powerful feature of the Assortment Management Center is its ability to automate the search for slow-selling products and quickly transfer them between branches.

The process consists of several steps that directly address retailers' most common needs:

Step 1. Analyzing sales performance (Sales Filter).

To find products that, for example, achieved a sell-through rate of less than 20% within 21 days of receipt, which is one of the most common requests from retail chains, use the special Sales Filter. The owner specifies the required sell-through percentage and the number of days within which it should have been reached. The program then filters out underperforming products that have remained unsold at a particular store.

Step 2. Finding isolated stock units (Stock Balance Filter).

Businesses often need to find isolated stock units, such as products with only one unit remaining, so they can be consolidated at one central store or sold off. The Stock Balance Filter displays products whose remaining quantity is less than, greater than, or equal to a specified value, such as = 1, at the selected warehouse.

Step 3. Quick transfer (Drag-and-Drop).

When a product remains as dead stock at Store 1 but is in demand at Store 2, there is no need to open separate transfer documents. The logistics task can be handled by simply dragging the product with the mouse:

1. Press and hold the left mouse button on the product in the Store 1 column and drag it to the Store 2 field.

2. Release the button — a window appears where you can specify the quantity to transfer.

3. Click «Transfer». The program automatically creates an internal transfer document between the warehouses. The planned transfer immediately appears in the planning log at the bottom of the screen, while the remaining quantity in the table is highlighted in green.

The «Assortment Management Center» in Torgsoft combines ABC demand analysis, inventory control, and warehouse logistics tools in a single window. Designed around the real needs of business owners, the program not only shows what is happening with products but also helps resolve the issue of slow-selling stock in one click, ensuring that the required products reach the stores where they are needed.