Merkal implements AI to centralize and streamline inventory planning across all channels
Merkal, Spanish market leader in footwear, was founded in 1987 with the opening of the first physical store in Barcelona. Merkal strives daily to meet their mission of satisfying customers through a convenient, agile, and omnichannel shopping experience, offering a wide variety of fashion products for the whole family at the best value. Today, the Merkal network is spread across 200+ points of sale nationwide.
Impact at a glance
sales increase (€)
sell-through (transferred units)
stockouts
Why Nextail?
A focus on the future of retail
Merkal joined forces with Nextail to speed up operations through automation while also embedding data-driven intelligence able to forecast demand, enhancing better cross-channel availability of the styles and sizes and ultimately increasing customer satisfaction.
What started out as a search for a replenishment module to complement the existing ERP, resulted in a partnership that today includes the full integration into the footwear retailer’s downstream merchandising processes across Merkal’s footprint of more than 200 stores, and more recently the latest preseason solutions, with plans for a full end-to-end implementation in 2024.
“For over three decades, our commitment has been to provide customers with product offerings that simplify their daily lives. We recognized the need to accelerate our ability to meet customer demand for a seamless shopping experience. Our collaboration with Nextail allows us to elevate our product assortments, ensuring we can fulfill demand while optimizing our inventory for enhanced efficiency.”
Impact
With Nextail in place, Merkal can calculate replenishment at SKU level with a size curve calculation to align replenishment with actual demand at each point of sale.
Merkal has greatly improved the granularity with which they can calculate scenarios to rebalance end-of-season inventory, working with much greater precision when it comes to inventory movements across their 200+ store network.
The impact of Nextail’s in-season solutions on Merkal’s merchandising ultimately led to a strengthened partnership that include additional solutions and a key role in enhancing Nextail preseason solutions.
“Nextail has been instrumental in helping us achieve three critical goals in the highly competitive footwear industry: optimizing store capacity through increased sales with less stock, reducing lost sales opportunities due to stockouts, and enhancing size availability in stores through better consolidation.”
