Stein Mart gains clear inventory view with cloud platform
A national off-price retailer has combined store, e-commerce and warehouse planning and forecasting.
Stein Mart has gained a holistic view of its inventory and a more streamlined approach to merchandise planning by implementing the Oracle Cloud enterprise platform. By consolidating omnichannel planning and forecasting across the front and back ends of the enterprise into one solution, Stein Mart will be better equipped to manage its inventory to support the needs of its customers, regardless of touchpoint.
Stein Mart partnered with retail artificial intelligence (AI) solutions provider Cognira and retail consulting firm The Parker Avery Group to re-engineer business processes and implement Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Service. Both Cognira and Parker Avery are members of the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). Previously, Stein Mart also implemented Oracle merchandising, store inventory management, and POS solutions, as well as the Oracle GoldenGate big data platform and Oracle JD Edwards enterprise software.
“We have been focused on simplifying our merchandising processes while expanding our omni-channel capabilities and new business initiatives,” said Nick Swetonic, Stein Mart’s senior VP of planning and allocation. “The enhanced functionality of Oracle’s merchandise financial planning solution will help us analyze data faster to create better plans up front so we can buy smarter and manage inventory more effectively.”
Other retailers have also been turning to Oracle’s cloud-based solutions to unify omnichannel merchandising activities across the enterprise. For example, Banana Republic is deploying Oracle Retail Merchandising Cloud Service and Oracle Retail Integration Cloud Service, powered by Oracle Cloud infrastructure, to drive operational agility and furnish business teams with a single view of inventory, product data and transaction details. The combined solutions allow the retailer to synchronize merchandising operations from buying to inventory valuation.
Stein Mart currently operates 283 stores across 30 states.