Rocket science retailing is the act of blending the traditional forecasting systems with technology prowess. A flexible supply chain is generated from the high-tech forecasting system. The data so generated should help retailers deeply understand the needs of their customers and how to respond to them in a timely manner (Raman et al, p.1). Rocket science retailing fix that the retailer have to keep a larger stock of slow moving items over a smaller stock of fast moving items. Early sales of products is essential for making predictions. Larger stock enables adjustments of price and availability of items that influence early sales. Retailers who exploit these data from such sales in planning of inventory have greater chances of doubling their profits compared to the retailers who keep small stocks of slow moving items such as clothing, music, books and consumer electronics.
Early sales are a good indicator of future sales and have a potential high payoff. Larger stock of slow moving items acts as a good estimate for the demand of the same products in future through conducting periodic data sales’ cycles (Raman et al, p.1). The management is well equipped with the demand trend and knows exactly when they need to stock their store to meet future demands. The ability to react to the signals of the market is only possible when retailers have larger stock of slow moving items. This enables them to meet supply with demand. Rocket science retailing provides a planning software that is appropriate for the retailers with large stock of slowly moving items that guarantee fast supply chains, adequate and accurate data, and ability to measure stock outs as well as the ability to forecast errors. Such information will help the retailers to customize their inventories easily based on demand. Most inventory planning systems will require about 3 to 4 years of demand history which cannot apply to products with short life cycles in modelling forecasting as well as stocking parameters (Raman et al, p.1).
Work cited
Marshall Fisher, Ananth Raman and Anna Sheen McClelland. Are You Ready?
https://hbr.org/2000/07/are-you-ready. FROM THE JULY–AUGUST 2000 ISSUE
