Spring - InsideOutdoor Magazine

Floor Space
Gramicci’s Real Estate Investment
by Martin Vilaboy
Gramicci doesn’t claim to be revolutionizing the retail buying
process. Rather, buyers within the largest retail segments, such
as food and drug, mass merchandise and department stores,
for years have handled ordering and replenishment in much
the same way that Gramicci is proposing, says Marty Weening,
Gramicci president.
That’s not so much the case within the outdoor segment,
however, and so Gramicci’s new “visual merchandising matrix”
program and the corresponding buy plans represent a possible
point of evolution for its outdoor specialty dealer base.
The outdoor industry’s traditional buying process for apparel,
which forces buyers to pour over extensive products lines,
cherry pick the particular SKUs that might appeal to their specific
customer base, estimate demand for the units and then
merchandise the disparate garments together on the sales floor
(repeat and reorder), lacks simplicity, efficiency and fails to address
a key element of the retail business, say Weening.
“Retail is a matter of real estate,” he says.
With that in mind, Gramicci has simplified purchasing, re-ordering,
inventory control and point-of-sale merchandising for its
dealers via three pre-established buy plans based on the fixtures
and square footage a retailer is willing to dedicate to the brand.
The three different visual merchandising matrices, meanwhile,
quickly show how the garments and collections merchandise
together on the retail floor, each being a three-dimensional representation
based on the allotted square footage.
“Buyers are under a tremendous amount of pressure,” says
Matthew Kaseta, Gramicci vice president of sales, faced with
a growing number of brands, expanding product lines and
shorter deadlines. “So our goal is to make it as easy as possible
for them.”
Gramicci Buy Plan Sample, Women’s
Date Units Dollars
G 350 Buy Plan (Space requirement, less wall, 350 square feet)
Delivery 1 6/15 450 $10,000
Delivery 2 8/1 520 $15,000
G 350 Totals - 970 $25,000
G 240 Buy Plan (Space requirement, 240 square feet)
Delivery 1 6/15 250 $6,000
Delivery 2 8/1 350 $9,000
G 240 Totals - 600 $15,000
G 120 Buy Plan (Space requirement, 120 square feet)
Delivery 1 6/15 188 $3,500
Delivery 2 8/1 184 $6,000
G 120 Totals - 372 $9,500
Retailers can choose from three preconfigured buy plans:
G 120, G 24O or G 350, the numbers representing the respective
square-footage space requirement. Utilizing their
existing fixtures, retailers then receive branded toppers for
each fixture and a selection of pre-merchandised apparel to
match the corresponding rack space and square footage,
the apparel broken down by gender and pre-determined delivery
dates.
Again, the driving force behind the program is to simplify
matters for the buyer. Gramicci realizes its line of apparel is big
and broad. And while the company has broken down its offering
into four collections (Authentic Originals, Built for Sport, Gramicci
Life and Greenicci), the G buy plans provide added focus,
reducing the amount of guesswork on the part of the buyer and
easing the decision-making process.
Of course, “the last thing you want to do is tell a buyer,
‘You have to buy this’” says Kaseta. And so the buy plans and
merchandising matrices ultimately that may be serve as recommendations.
Buyers are welcomed to tailor and tweak the
selection of garments according to their local demographics,
climate and so forth.
A retailer in Texas, for example, might prefer to swap out
some of the long-sleeve tops within a buy plan assortment with
more short-sleeve tops, and while each G plan initially contains
garments from all four Gramicci collections, a retailer that may
be near a college campus can increase the number of garments
from the Gramicci Life or Greenicci collections.
Granted, opting into one of the Gramicci buy plans require
buyers to place a good deal of trust in Gramicci’s designers and
merchandisers, possibly reducing the input of any local market
expertise and instinct. On the other hand, partners in the VMM
platform benefit from Gramicci’s 25 years of design expertise,
market research and intelligence.
Gramicci also maintains a network of about a dozen retailers
across the country, ranging from single-store operations to
national chains, from which the company collects sell-through
data twice a month, says Kaseta. “It gives us an idea of what
is moving, what styles are selling and what colors are selling in
what markets.”
That data, likewise, can be applied to modifying and updating
Gramicci’s buy plans.
And more information, in turn, makes any decision-making
process that much simpler, “and more accurate,” adds Kaseta.
“If we can provide that information and help our retailers
improve their sell through, as well as their margin and their confidence
in Gramicci,” he continues, “that’s only going to benefit
them, and us, as well.”
38 | InsideOutdoor | Spring 2008