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Etienne Aigner Steps Ahead with Fashions and Sales
Outsourced reporting system gives footwear and accessory manufacturer accurate, timely tools to boost sales.
The fashion industry is fickle, but not Etienne Aigner. Among the industry's largest manufacturers of fashion footwear,
handbags and other accessories, Etienne Aigner holds a highly respected position for quick identification and response
to the latest customer trends.
Aigner does it with accurate, timely sales data and analysis provided through Edifice. The Riverdale, NJ, provider of
outsource e-business services collects sales data from all the manufacturer's major accounts--including May Co.,
Federated Department Stores, Saks, Belk, Dillard's and Marshall Field's--analyzes it and presents it weekly to
Etienne Aigner.
"It is invaluable for us in providing us with a competitive edge in analyzing performance of our product at the retail
level," says Aigner's Lance DeShazo, vice president, sales, footwear division.
"If you bought a pair of our shoes Saturday afternoon, we would know about it on Monday afternoon. That is extremely
important in the fast-paced environment retail is in," says John French, director of sales technology. "They cleanse
and organize the data and then present it back to us in predesigned reports. It's a huge amount of data, yet it's
current, accurate and timely." Before Aigner selected the Edifice reporting services, it used another sell-through
system for about a year which "was no where near as timely or efficient in its operation. We used to have to do a
lot of prep work just to get reports out by Wednesday. That is old information by then. Now we get reports by noon
on Monday," says French.
Increased Accuracy and Reliability
"Our objective was to be able to analyze sell-through data in a timely manner," says French. "What Edifice provided was
not only the information in a timely manner, but with a great degree of accuracy and reliability."
That enables Aigner to make decisions in time to work with retailers to increase sales. "If we see a product moving
very quickly in certain accounts and another account will have that product on order, but not scheduled for delivery
for another month, we might go to them and suggest they get it in sooner and maybe expand the order size. It
increases everyone's sales and everyone is happy," says French.
Simple Reporting Process
The Edifice reporting process is simple. Individual stores from each chain submit sales data electronically over
the web and electronic data interchange (EDI) to their corporate headquarters. The information is detailed to the
SKU level and size. Each chain's headquarters then electronically transmits the information to Edifice. There the
data is warehoused, cleansed and organized before being sent to Aigner's secure FTP site. Aigner picks up reports
from the FTP site in a customized Microsoft Excel format. The reports analyze general POS information, sales trends,
inventory on hand, merchandising, planning and shipping information.
Data in Useable Formats for Everyone
"The really good part about the system, in addition to its accuracy and timeliness, is there are so many different
ways to analyze the data," says French. "Virtually everyone in the company, from the CEO to marketing, design,
production, sales and planning all anxiously await the arrival of the reports each week."
"Because the reports are in Excel tables, they are easily integrated in Aigner's internal systems and easily
modified. We can look at things differently. It saves time. Designers want to see what is selling by type of
footwear or handbag. 'Are totes selling in the south?' for example. Sales people may be looking at it by account.
Marketing looks at it differently too."
"You can design your master fields any way you would like to, for example in footwear, by shoes, boots, sandals,
then casual or dress, open or closed toe. There are a lot of different categories and we're able to easily maintain
those categories in Edifice," says French. "We even have special selectable categories we can modify from time to
time. There's an awful lot of flexibility on how we look at data and how we use it."
Using the data
Edifice reports show sales by class of product , such as casual shoes vs. open-toed sandals. Aigner has always been
highly respected for maintaining adequate stock. Now, with Edifice tracking what colors and sizes are selling, its
job is a lot easier. The same goes for mix management, new product design and inventory tracking. "We use the data
in all our planning and purchasing decisions," notes French.
Etienne Aigner always had high fill rates, but now they are more precise. By using size analysis, planning is
better and fill rates high. "We know how many size elevens are selling at Macy's vs. Lord and Taylor's, for
instance," says French.
Identifying fast or slow-moving items helps with production scheduling too. "If we see something is not
performing, we may decide to delay or modify the orders. True, our 3-month production lead times force
us to do a lot of educated guessing, but this information helps us to spot trends quickly," adds French.
Quick Trend Spotting
Spotting trends quickly also improves cash flow when a fast-moving item at one trading partner is used to persuade
another to move up a delivery date. Or, if something is selling at Lord and Taylor's but not Macy's, for example,
the statistics are used to help determine why, including if product mix is a reason. Then Aigner can go back to
the slow-selling store and realign the mix for the benefit of the retailer and Etienne Aigner.
"Our relationships with our trading partners are excellent," says French, "and one key reason is because we are
able to share information in a manner that benefits both."
"Before using the Edifice reports, we relied on data from each retailer. It was not at the level of detail that
we wanted and it was not accumulated for us. If we got a fax from, say, Macy's, we wouldn't key enter it because
we would loose the timeliness and accuracy," explains French.
Always Accurate
The Edifice system helps Aigner calculate perpetual inventory with all its trading partners. Most send Aigner
their current on-hand inventory, but two major accounts do not. So Edifice created a program that reconciles
data from advance ship notices (ASN) with sales figures. As a result, says French, "we have a very reliable,
accurate and easily maintainable perpetual inventory that Edifice maintains for us."
The program also ensures that data is reasonable and accurate. If information arrives for a non-existent store
number, for example, Edifice examines and corrects the situation, saving time for Etienne Aigner staff.
People Crucial to Success
"The success of any of these systems is based on relationships--period," says French. "Edifice's response to
our information and modification requests is great. Largely due to our relationship with Edifice, we can turn
around and have an excellent relationship with our trading partners."
"So Etienne Aigner is ready to move onto the next step in data collection and management," says French. It's
working with Edifice to finalize integration of warehouse information with the Edifice sales data. "It will
be helpful for our salespeople to know if we have a product on hand without having to look in another software
application or elsewhere," he adds.
Fashion may be fickle, but thanks to the Edifice reporting system, Etienne Aigner's data collection and
decision making isn't. It has accurate and timely data to respond quickly and assuredly to the fashion public's
next big whim.
Edifice is an information services company providing suppliers with point-of-sale information and POS based
retail analysis.
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