Operations
Replenishment, allocation, assortment, returns and demand sensing — the operational decision loops.
5 articles
The retail allocation engine: where the season is actually decided
Initial allocation is the most leveraged decision in retail. Every later replenishment lives inside the box it set — yet most chains still allocate by formula.
Continuous replenishment vs. the weekly meeting
The weekly replenishment cadence is an artifact of a pre-data era. Every week your team meets to decide is a week the network drifts further from optimal.
AI assortment planning: the highest-leverage decision in retail
Assortment is set once a season and lives 6–9 months. No in-season tuning recovers a bad pre-season call — which is exactly where most assortment AI fails.
Retail returns are a feedback signal, not a logistics problem
Most retailers handle returns as a reverse-logistics flow. Treated as a signal feeding allocation and buying, the same returns recover 200–400 bps of margin.
Demand sensing in retail: forecasting for decision-readiness
Forecast accuracy is the wrong KPI. A 92%-accurate forecast that lands after the replenishment cut-off is worth less than a 78% forecast that lands in time.