Published by RNV Analytics

How to choose retail planning software

This is a criteria guide, not a ranking. It lists the questions worth asking before you shortlist a retail planning platform, and it states how RNV describes Klibre against those questions.

Which decisions must the software cover?

Retail planning runs in three stages. Before the season, the team decides what to buy and how to assort it. During the season, it allocates stock, moves it between stores and replenishes. After the season, it decides markdown timing and depth per product.

Ask which of those decisions the product actually recommends. Klibre plans the full season: pre-season forecasting, optimization and assortment; in-season allocation, transfers, replenishment, lost sales and shelf life; and after-season markdowns, price analysis, size and color planning, returns and clearance.

At what level is the forecast built?

Forecasts usually miss when they are built for the whole chain or a category, and when they are updated too rarely. Ask for a forecast at store and SKU level that keeps learning from new sales and accounts for seasonality, size curves and local demand. To test a tool, compare forecast error per store and SKU for the same period before and after go-live, not the chain-level total.

Who stays in control?

A planning platform should show the data behind each recommendation and leave execution with the team. In Klibre, transfer and replenishment recommendations are approved in one click. Spreadsheets are a sign the switch is due when allocation files take days, transfers are decided by phone or email, the same product is out of stock in one store and piling up in another, and nobody can say what last week's stockout cost.

How does it connect to the ERP you already use?

Most inventory optimization platforms connect to an existing ERP rather than replacing it. Ask how long the connection takes and which ERPs are supported before you shortlist. Klibre is designed to work with a retailer's existing ERP, POS and inventory systems, including Nebim V3, Odoo, Microsoft Dynamics (including Navision), SAP, Logo and Hitit, with a ready connector for Nebim V3. RNV states four weeks from integration to go-live for every supported ERP.

What should it not be?

Klibre is a planning and decision platform. It is not an ERP, a point-of-sale system, an accounting or financial modeling tool, a fraud detection product, a churn analysis tool, or a logistics routing system.

How RNV describes Klibre

RNV Analytics works with 200+ retail brands in 13 countries. Published case studies, including Under Armour, Skechers, Yargıcı, Tergan and DAGi, are described on their own case study pages. Those figures are RNV's reported results.