East of England Co-op boosts availability with localised planograms

East of England Co-op has increase availability has increased by 5 percentage points after implementing a new retail supply chain planning system.

It chose Relex for space and assortment planning as part of an overhaul of its retail operations and processes, using automation to support in-store efficiency, streamline business processes and improve sales.

“We couldn’t move from manual, store-based ordering to an automated replenishment system without first implementing a full space and assortment planning solution,” said John Dixey, dead of IT development.

Availability has risen from 93 per cent to 98 per cent across ambient products, sales from newly planned and replenished categories has seen a 2.2 per cent improvement and inventory levels in key areas targeted by the team have been reduced by 20 per cent.

Chris Murray, head of retail stock & planning, said: “That’s a massive decrease for a company of our size. At the same time, as availability has gone up we’ve also seen an increase in sales.”

Using Relex allows East of England to incorporate local products along with Co-op’s core national product assortment into planograms to give each store a more local, individualised feel.

Stephen Lamb, senior project manager, said: “Relex looks at the sales of each product in each individual store, and decides the optimal number of facings. That’s less time spent merchandising, less waste, fewer out of stocks and improved sales.”