Maple LakeÂ’s QuickAssortment will standardise store and range of premium US footwear brand

Maple Lake’s QuickAssortment will standardise store and range of premium US footwear brand

Aerosoles, a US footwear brand found in thousands of stores worldwide, has completed phase one of the implementation of Maple Lake’s QuickAssortment software.

The New Jersey-based retailer is using the software to refine and centralise its merchandise, store and assortment planning activities.

“Operating a true multi-channel business with concept stores, outlet stores, e-commerce as well as a catalogue and direct sales businesses requires some significant coordination; relying on spreadsheets is no longer an option for us,” said Tupper Kinder, chief information officer at Aerosoles.

“We needed a tool that was flexible enough to cater to our unique ways of working, robust enough to support our volumes and growth plans, but that was still a commercial solution so that we could remain on an upgrade path; QuickAssortment will give us all of this and more.”

Kinder continued: “Everyone in the business recognised the need for improvements in the way we plan and manage our inventory, the challenge was to find a partner who recognized the kind of business that we are and could still bring expertise and opinions to the table without changing the core of what makes us successful.”

Elminating reliance on spreadsheets

The QuickAssortment software will enable Aerosoles to coordinate all of the merchandise, store and channel plans as well as its assortment and key item plans in a single integrated environment. This will reduce the time that the business currently spends on maintaining its existing spreadsheet infrastructure, and instead enable the company to develop more detailed plans and become more responsive to the latest trends.

Kinder added: “We were impressed by the client portfolio that Maple Lake had built up, and we felt confident that their singular focus on planning has created expertise and skills that will help us during our implementation. This is not just a project; it’s a partnership.”

Phase 1, covering merchandise and key item planning by channel, has been completed ahead of schedule and under budget. QuickAssortment operates on a Microsoft SQL server platform and operates within a client-server architecture, with data being managed on the server to optimise performance and scalability.

Aerosoles operates 100-plus Aerosoles stores in the US and can be found in thousands of department and specialty stores in more than 20 countries worldwide. In the US, the retailer also has catalogue and web channels.