FAQ

General

Q: After Signing up on MS Pro, is it safe to start uploading data as inputs right away? Is there any NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) or EULA or any other agreement which ensures that my data is secure and will not be accessible to any third party?
A: During the sign-up process, before you submit your details, you get to see terms and conditions on the page which includes a EULA (end-user license agreement). This agreement has all clauses necessary to ensure that your data is secure and you can start your uploads on MS Pro without any hesitation. You can refer to the agreement on the following link – EULA.

Q: How will projects be created, at the company level or for different sales channels?
A: The concept of projects has been created to provide flexibility to the organization using MS Pro. Projects can be created for different brands, different channels, regions, a combination of these or any other way based on how the roles and responsibilities of the users are in the organization. The only caveat here is that by creating a lot of projects, an organization may lose the advantage of analyzing data at a central/macro level.

Q: Are primary sales good enough for the tool or is it important to upload the secondary sales?
What if we do not have secondary sales for some of our channels?
A: It is very important to have secondary sales as an input in MS Pro as that gives the actual performance and is the correct input to use for predicting demand mix. Primary sales can be misleading and do not take into consideration the secondary sales that could not happen (dead stock, returns, etc.) which directly impacts the accuracy of MS Pro outputs.

Q: Do you incorporate customer returns? Is there a size that is being returned a lot? We might
reduce producing it
A: In offline, the customer physically tried, tested a product before buying. The no. of returns are relatively low. Hence the sales data is far more meaningful for analysis as opposed to returns data. In online, the customer can return the product or multiple reasons –

• The physical product was not the same as shown in the catalog.

• It was not of the right size

• The product got damaged during transit

• Payment problems

• The customer was not available during delivery

All these reasons do not give any clue as to whether the product was desirable or not, from a consumer PoV. Hence the system algorithms focus on what consumers opted to buy as opposed to what they returned. If still needed, it is recommended to subtract returns from sales offline before uploading the transactions.

Q: How much transaction data is required for analysis?
A: It is good to have at least a year’s data as it covers the sale trends across all months (covering seasonality) and is helpful to choose different analysis periods from the same easily basis requirements.

Q: We do not have uniform SKU codes, there are multiple SKUs of the same product. Can MS Pro handle this? Is there an SKU mapping feature?
A: There is no SKU mapping feature in MS Pro (It’s there in MS Pro enterprise), so it has to be made sure that each product’s SKU code is unique. Else the user needs to manually map the SKUs to a single SKU offline before upload the inputs.

Q: How is MS Pro better than Microsoft Excel?
A: MS Pro works on a set of patent-pending algorithms in the backend which have been made after years of research on the planning and distribution done by merchandisers. This was achieved by working directly with multiple brands’ merchandising team on MS Pro enterprise and identifying key areas of improving the accuracy of outputs and automation. MS Pro incorporates all those learning and has been made with the vision of making life as simple for merchandisers as possible with high accuracy and speed. Not to mention, all calculations done in MS Pro are at a very granular level – store + product attribute group, which becomes a challenge when done manually in Excel or a similar tool, esp. when the number of stores or product attribute groups are high.

Q: If I already have an ERP system why should I use MS system ?

A: ERP systems are typically designed to manage day-to-day business activities such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management and compliance, and supply chain operations.

But MS gives you intelligent recommendations basis algorithms built after a lot of R&D

Q: Can you integrate to the partners via API or FTP for data to automatically flow in without the need to upload?
A: No, as of now MS Pro does not support system integrations and inputs must be uploaded directly on the tool before usage.

Q: Why are TSV files used instead of CSV?
A: CSV files run into problems when there are special characters like comma (,) or quotes (“) in the data. TSV files can handle special characters very gracefully.

Q: In which format should the dates be uploaded in sales data?

A: MS Pro accepts dates uploaded in “yyyy-mm-dd”. In most cases, the format is set to “dd-mm-yyyy” and might come the same way on downloading the templates/demo data before upload. So it is recommended to change these dates to the correct upload format of “yyyy-mm-dd”. This can be done easily by using TEXT(“date”,”yyyy-mm-dd”) Excel formula.

Q: Do you consider inventory? How do you correct for availability/exposure?
A: No, MS Pro does not take daily historical inventory as an input. Availability/exposure is corrected in the algorithm via a statistical technique. However, store and warehouse inventory snapshots are taken as input before running distribution.

Q: Are algorithms the same for all kinds of industries?
A: Algorithms have been made keeping the apparel industry in focus but have worked smoothly for other sectors like cosmetics, accessories, footwear, etc.

Q: Is there any auto syncing of the data?

A: No auto syncing, manual upload & FTP integration is available.

Q: Should the data for returns reports be uploaded manually?

A: Yes, currently it’s a manual upload. FTP integration is available.

Q: Do you have buy vs sale reports?

A: Sell through report available in BI module can be used to see the performance of your styles.

Q: Can we upload images in the tool? What all reposts will have images?

A: Yes, image need to be stored in a open source and images can be linked to the style master. Dead style, Returns ,Top seller module will have UI report with images.

Q: What is the logic behind data extrapolation?

A: MS Pro-M does not consider inventory data. Since we are not considering every day sales data in planning module we do a smoothening/ calculation on moving averages to correct for stock outs and remove silos in data set for stock correction.

Q: Is attribute group fixed or can be changed?

A: No and order of attributes can be defined as per user requirement.

Q: How does MS Pro process (clean) the raw data to predict true (correct) demand from raw sales? How are liquidations (discounted sales) and unavailability (of inventory) accounted for while predicting demand?

A: The first step before consuming any data for analysis in MS Pro is that of data processing called the “Sales data cleanup”. In this step basis the limit defined by the user as an input, MS Pro cleans up the most liquidated (discounted) sales of each attribute group in respective stores. While doing so, MS Pro also modifies the sales data with smart algorithms to normalize sales drops due to unavailability during the sales period selected.

Q: I see lesser “Percentage of Revenue” cleaned. What can be the reason for this?
A: Say you gave 10% value for the Max Liquidation Cleanup Cutoff %, but now you see only 8% as Percentage of Revenue Cleaned. The reason for this is that the system intelligently buckets similarly discounted data, and either includes all or none (as they are similar). This is illustrated below

So, in the above example, there is not much difference really in giving a 35% discount or a 40% discount (they are similarly discounted). So, either all such sales should be either cleaned up together or not cleaned up. In order not to breach the 10% criteria, the system chooses not to clean up such data. Hence you would see only 8% of revenue cleaned up.

Q: How do you plan to adopt this forecasting tool for categories other than Fashion – FMCG, White Goods, Accessories & Cosmetics?

A: 

• MS Pro will work perfectly well for categories other than Fashion.

• We have tested MS Pro forecasting for FMCG, White goods, Accessories & Cosmetics categories along with Fashion and the results have been satisfactory.

Q: Why in MS Pro line of product we use FTP to transfer data rather than have API integration?

A: Increff Merchandising solution is an analytical platform that takes large volumes of data to run its algorithms and deliver intelligent output. It is built for small and large clients whose daily data input can run into millions of rows (1000 of stores).

The best practice for transferring large volumes of data is FTP or file in a bucket. Normally, API has the best use case with transactional systems i.e. when you have to give a response based on the data provided. For example, an order is placed on the website and if there is a service provider that can give tax computed receipts, then it has to be generated in real-time (response).

Increff Merchandising solution is a predictive system where one day’s data may not be sufficient to give insights. For example, if you are using it for OTBs there can be other constraints like MOQ, etc. which need to be considered when making a decision. The solution consumes daily data to analyze the best use case for running your ARS (Automatic Replenishment System), and for any other analysis, the solution consumes large volumes of data, of weeks to months to years, to accurately predict the optimum demand.

Q: Why don’t Increff use AI/ML in algorithms?

A: 

1. Merchandising is largely a theory of constraints problem and for that algorithms and statistics give not only highly accurate outcomes, but also explanations for those outcomes. AI/ML cannot give you detailed explanations.

2. AI/ML cannot realistically learn business constraints or take business decisions - a business leader has to feed those into the system. So there is really not much useful contribution of AI/ML in such areas.

3. There is nothing new to learn as such,  because business constraints and rules are already well understood by the merchandising fraternity .

4. You do not need AI/ML to do 2+2 ! Algorithms and statistics are near accurate and millions of times faster and compared to AI/ML, for such problems

At a fundamental level, the biggest problems faced by merchandisers are

• Inability to store, process and analyze large amounts of data

• Making sub-optimal decisions because of the above inability

Increff MS replaces Excel with a tool that helps merchandisers with the above problems
We do not need to replace the art and science of merchandising itself via AI/ML.

Assortment Planning

Q: How is MS Pro going to work for online channels? Is it even useful on that front?

A: MS Pro can be used for online channels as well. Each channel can be created as a store and sales transactions can be uploaded against the same. The tool does its job of identifying top sellers, recommending size rations, projecting sales mix, splitting revenue targets, and providing sales projections. If required, it can also do replenishment for each channel.

Q: How does MS Pro help in selection for scenarios where orders are placed by external buyers? For example, Shoppers Stop stores where buyers over there decide what a brand gets to keep.
A: MS Pro identifies top sellers for each partner and recommends the correct mix of attribute groups in which the merchandise should be bought for each store. Since this is a data-driven insight, it is important to pass on the same to the buyers when they place orders, in order to influence their decision making to improve sales which is beneficial for both the parties.

Q: Can more attributes be added to get the idea of performance and direction on what to produce
A: MS Pro currently supports brand, sub-brand, gender and price bucket as the only levels of attributes, but these can be used smartly to incorporate more attributes, for example in Denims, Fit can be incorporated by creating Slim-fit Jeans as a subcategory within Denims. If there is a requirement for more detailed accuracy – including more attributes, it is recommended to move to MS Pro enterprise which is capable of handling up to 17 attributes. Below is a video on how to do it –

Q: Business does not have a concept of NOOS, is it mandatory to have NOOS or can we get predictions across fashion clusters only?
A: The tool can identify top sellers and it is recommended to reorder the same, but it is completely a user’s call to take advantage of this insight.

Q: Can MS Pro handle separate forecasting/planning for core and fashion styles? Here the core products are the ones defined by brands.

A: MS Pro can handle this problem in two ways. Firstly, if the requirement is the get the overall demand for core clusters and fashion clusters separately, the user can concatenate the Gender attribute with the “Core/Fashion” term. For e.g. Men’s Core and Men’s fashion can be two separate genders. This way, their clustering will be different. On the second hand, if the requirement is to predict the demand of individual core styles, then it is recommended to put the core style code name as one of the attributes so that single style clusters are created for each core style and all analysis is done – outputs given at a style level.

Q: What if we changed the size measurements in between? For example, the size measurement is now an S size measurement?
A: In cases like these if the changes in size measurements are linkable from size to size, it is recommended to update the historical sizes as new sizes. If that is not possible, then there is a flexibility of selecting a specific analysis period where a user can choose a period where the new sizes are selling.

Q: How are exit sized determined by MS Pro?

A: During the data processing part, MS Pro asks for user’s input as a benchmark to exit certain sizes in respective stores where their sales contribution has been below the benchmark. For e.g, if the benchmark is 2%, MS Pro will recommend most sizes contributing below this 2% benchmark of sales at the product group level (Brand-category-gender) for that store.

Q: Different brands and different categories have different pricing strategies (across EOSS/full price/online discounting). Then how does the liquidation strategy work?
A: MS Pro works at an attribute group + store level which is more levels below the brand – category level. So, the liquidation cleanup of historical data analyzed also happens at those levels and the price bucket mix within a brand – category – sub-category is also given as an output that can be used to correct pricing strategies directionally. As far as different periods are concerned, MS Pro gives the flexibility to the user to choose the analysis period for every output, so a person can choose a historical EOSS period for
future EOSS prediction and likewise for full price.

Q: Does this tool forecast demand for a new category to be launched?
A: No, the tool can only forecast for categories present historically.

Q: For how many months in the future should the AOP be uploaded?
A: For as many months the sales mix projection (revenue split) is required.

Q: How to change the AOP input on the basis of a Brand being seasonal (Like to Like historical period for prediction) or id the brand is non-seasonal (Recent sales to be considered for prediction)?
A: Below is a video to explain the same in detail –

Q: Is the attribute group customizable? Can more attributes be added?

A: Upto 7 attributes can be added.

Q: Can the performance in different months of the given AG be seen in UI?

A: You can download the report for granular output and also use filter in UI for top level numbers.

Q: Can the tool analyze sales for 2 different period and choose the best one?

A: We have to generate 2 different reports and then take a call. We analyze one year's complete sales as fashion is very dynamic.

Q: Does the algorithm consider sell through as well along with revenue?

A: Yes it does, but only sell through is not enough. Eg- High price point items might have less sell through. So, other KPIs needs to be considered.

Q: How do we get quantity while planning for next seasons?

A: For every attribute group, for each store MS Pro can recommend the contribution and the sales projections.

Q: How to identify loss of sale opportunities due to

1. Stock unavailability

2. Wrong fitment of Color/ Fabric/ Fit/Size Set in a store-partner-region though stock is present

3. Mismatch in Sell Plan & Planogram, i.e. planogram provided is less than the rev split output for a month
   
   

A: MS Pro helps you identify the loss of sales opportunities and helps you correct it by optimizing what, when, how much to buy and where to showcase the inventory

1. Stock unavailability - We have a report showing Rate of Sale, Inventory Days on Hand (DOH) & Sell Through Rate (STR) = Sales/(Sales+Current Stock) or Sales/Inventory Dispatches. We capture these metrics at a store-style level. This helps us identify based on high STR & high ROS & low DoH that this style was a good performer and went out of stock. This means there is a sales loss due to stock unavailability and you need to re-order/replenish this style in this store.

2. Wrong fitment of color/fabric/fit/size set etc in a store though stock is present - This can also be tracked daily since we have a STR, DOH & ROS report at multiple levels - including product attributes. This will give an insight into what set of attributes is performing and understocked (showing loss of sales) & what set of attributes are not performing and overstocked (non-movers / slow sellers)

3. Mismatch in Sell Plan & Planogram - You can run Revenue split report of the tool and compare to your planogram manually, its a matter of 5-10 minutes, given that planograms change less frequently (not daily)

These reports help you correct your loss of sales opportunities during the season and also ensure that the correction happens when you plan for the next season by planning more for better performing products and less/eliminate non-movers / slow sellers.

Q: Can business override be used to tweak the Assortment Plan output manually, then run Revenue Split (get sales demand forecast) based on the tweaked assortment. What if we need an option to remove some categories from certain stores?

A: Currently it can be handled by running the tool twice by disabling stores/styles.

Q: In online we operate on high discount already so why sales discount cleanup is required?

A: Sales data cleanup will be done on relative basis at a brand+category+channel level.

Q: Can there be a input to see above 50% discount (kind of benchmark)?

A: No

Q: Can we get Ideal Assortment at a SKU level?

A: This can be computed by putting SKU details in Subcategory column in the Style input file in Masters section.

Q: How does the tool deal with the fact that a particular month sales will be higher than the previous month?

A: Revenue split will forecast keeping in mind the targets , you can keep high targets for these months.

Q: Can we do calculation for different scenario in sales data clean up?

A: Yes, that's the main advantage of plug in play tool so you can run module for different scenario and compare the output.
Eg- Max liquidation clean up - can intake any percentage- 0%,5%,10% as input, run the module, download the two report and compare the data (in excel).

Q: Which KPIs are considered while defining Top sellers?

A: We take revenue contribution benchmark as an input but tool considers MRP, revenue ,discount as KPIs for calculation.

Q: Do the tool consider stores inventory (store stocks)?

A: MS Pro does not capture inventory. It consumes daily sales data at an SKU level and then smoothens it to correct for stock outs and silos in data set.

Q: At what levels are Top seller reports available?

A:

• Partner level

• Partner + Category level

• Company level

• Category + Company level
  
  

Q: Why are size sets taken at a AG level instead of style level?

A:

• The data points at a style level might not be enough to give an accurate predictions.

• Also, there may be edge cases in the analysis period.

• For Ex- XXL or XXS had sales higher than usual in the analysis period. Thus, the prediction for that style will be higher for these edge styles, which don’t have a demand in general.

• Thus taking an average at an AG level, will give more accurate sense of split between customers.

Q: Returns are removed currently from the sales file, so while calculation it is not the effective sales that are being analyzed specially incase of online where returns % is as high as 40% ?

A: If we remove the sales which will eventually be returned, we are removing that demand which was initially created at the juncture when the customer made the decision of purchase. According to MS Pro it is not the right way of looking at things Returns can happen because of multiple reasons and this this should be analyzed separately against separate KPIs like size, fit, color, etc.

Q: Are PPV/Conversion Rate considered in planning while planning the buys ?

A: Currently not done

Q: How is the 2D sizes concept handled?

A: This can be taken care with Parent-Child Mapping.

For Example, we will map (30-30) with (30-32) and subsequently is the former is not available the latter will be used to replenish.

Distribution

Q: Tool is quite relevant for brands that have their own EBOs as they can use it for distribution, as they will have complete control on what stocks to send to stores, and if they are doing it manually.
A: Yes, for one’s own store control on execution is 100% but even for external partners, MS Pro is useful to keep a check and validate the allocations and replenishment. It has been helpful in the past to highlight gaps and course correct the stock situation even at partner stores of brands on MS Pro.

Q: How does MS Pro maintain correct merchandise assortment at stores while allocating/replenishing styles based on individual style performance? Is it possible that the last style allocated for a store-category due to planogram gap constraint is a lower-ranked style instead of another available higher-ranked style?
A: This is one of the USPs of MS Pro where MS Pro takes the planogram input from the user at a store-category level and intelligently breaks it down in the backend in the right assortment of product attribute groups. Due to this, the planogram constraints work at a level below category. This ensures that if there are two styles of different sales performance, but one of them is more important to complete the recommended assortment, then that style is given priority for allocation. This check is dropped if the overall planogram input is still not met and the tool ensures that the stocks are ultimately fulfilled at a store-category level planogram.

Q: How to avoid the allocation of old season styles?
A: Simply remove them from whstock (Warehouse Stock) file, before uploading it

Q: How do you define brokenness?

A: When the pivotal sizes are not available a style is considered broken. Pivotal size- Within an Attribute group tool takes a sq root of no. of sizes and then takes the revenue contribution of each sizes to calculate the piviotal sizes.
Eg- If there are 11 sizes. Sq root of 11 would be 3.3, round up for this would be 4.
Now if high revenue contributed sizes are XXS, S, M and L- Tool will consider XXS, XS S,M, L as the pivotal sizes. XS will also be included due to continuity.

Q: How to prevent broken styles during allocation?
A: The system tries its best to do allocation in a manner where only non-broken styles go first to the stores. If the stores remain empty, then it tries to allocate styles which have good quantity left in the warehouse but have sizes missing. If you do not want your first allocation to contain any broken styles, you can simply remove these from the output.

Q: How can I create a planogram for online channels?
A: As online channels do not have any display constraints, creating a planogram is not based on physical constraint but based on the forward cover that the business wants to carry. Since MS Pro gives you projected sales quantity for upcoming months after breaking down your revenue targets, you can take that as a direct output from the tool and sum up x no.of future months’ projected sales quantity you need to take as a cover and use it as the planogram quantity. In case you want to work on the backward cover, i.e., basis recent historical sales, you can simply take the historical x duration sales as your planogram quantity constraint. So, for example, a subcategory of polo T-shirt, if you project to sell 300 pieces per month on the channel and you want to keep a forward cover of 3 months inventory with the channel. Then your planogram will be 300*3 = 900 pieces.
As a brand, if you plan to keep 50 pieces in each style, this will become the size set for a polo T-shirt.

Q: Does the tool support multi-warehouse set-up? For example, the demand of Haryana/Karnataka warehouses in terms of taste of customers/size ratios might be different. Can this tool help understand the demand across different warehouses?
A: MS Pro does not support multi-warehouse distribution and warehouse to warehouse transfers. MS Pro enterprise can handle a multi-warehouse to store distribution but that too has limitations on the warehouse to warehouse transfers. As far as understanding demand patterns (attribute group mix and size) is concerned, that can be easily provided by MS Pro, given that the inputs are also provided at the same level.

Q: Does the tool ensure that size continuity is maintained while allocation and broken styles are not allocated to the stores?

A: Yes, the tool automatically identifies through set logic if a style is healthy enough to be allocated and a minimum x number of key sizes are present and continuous.

Q: While distributing is there a feature for coordinates (sending a top/a skirt together)?
A: No, such a feature is not there in the tool as it does all the distribution based purely on the merit of individual styles and recommended assortment for each store.

Q: Does MS Pro ever breach planograms in distribution?
A: No, MS Pro will never exceed a store-category level planogram constraint.

Q: If we want to do a new allocation basis historical period and replenishment basis in-season, can we have two different analysis periods?
A: Yes, you have to select the analysis period in the distribution for new allocation and replenishment period
for in-season replenishment before running distribution.

Q: Do you consider the expiry date of the products? Does it handle the FIFO distribution?
A: No, MS Pro does not take expiry dates of products as an input

Q: Will this work for primary replenishment (distributor to channel partners) and secondary replenishment (partners to end consumers)?
A: MS Pro will work best where secondary sales data and store inventory is available. In most cases of distribution, this information is difficult to get – not to mention the stock visibility at the distributor’s warehouse is another complication which as of now MS Pro does not handle.

Q: instead of the number of pieces, can we input DOH cover in a planogram?
A: no, currently the tool takes only quantity in pieces as the capacity constraint in the planogram. A user can convert the DOH cover in pieces and upload them before running distribution. In case the user needs the tool to help create planogram basis DOH input, then that feature is available in the Enterprise version of MS Pro.

Q: In case of limited inventory how does the tool determine which option will go to which store ?

A: Tool will analyze which store is the best for which style . This is done basis of Store-Style ranking.

Q: If any store has less sales but the fill rate is also less, we might want to prioritize that store over other stores while distribution even though the sales is less to compensate the fill rate. How does your tool handle this?

A: In this case distribution can be done basis store grades, which will set the priority of the stores. Distribution for A grade stores first followed by B,C,D subtracting the allocated stock each time which will become the warehouse stock for next set of iteration.

Q: How does the tool allocate for a new store with no past data?

A: We have an input of Reference Store mapping for new stores in the Masters section. A reference store can of similar DNA can be mapped to replicate the sales till the new store has enough sales data required for analysis.

Q: Does the tool consume planogram according to display capacity?

A: No, it consumes planogram capacity/maximum quantity the brand want to stock for each category.

Q: Can we do distribute for channels separately (online and offline)?

A: Yes, you can create separate project for different channels.

Q: If category is not working in a store, what will the tool do?

A: Based on the store-category performance the tool will lower the prioritization of allocation of styles belonging to that category for that particular store.

Q: If there is a common inventory pool for offline and online how will MS Pro handle it?

A: As a business call brand can segregate their pool of online or offline inventory before running Distribution module. Also, with the help of MS Pro demand projections it can plan for the inventory.

Q: While distributing can MS Pro manage to allocate coordinates (sending top/skirt together)?

A: If at the POS the data is not being captured at a combination level then the algorithm does not support this.

Q: Can brand set up a max limit for SKU Depth in case of New Allocation?

A: Currently the tool handles only minimum sku depth allocating 1 piece at least in new allocation. Max input is not available. But this can be solved by a combination of inputs- Key size over-ride & Category style size quantity.

Q: Can Planogram be dynamically adjusted between Categories in case there is understocking in one Category in the Warehouse and overstocking in the other?

A: No, currently not supported by MS Pro.

Q: If the Brand is not looking at size continuity and only looking at Piece by piece replenishment, how will MS Pro support this?

A: Category Style Size Quantity has to be 1 for those categories and Replenishment Flag needs to be turned off.

Q: While doing replenishment do you consider store stocks?

A: Yes, we consider store stocks & warehouse stocks (goods in transit and open orders can be a part of store stocks depending on when you are running the tool).

Q: How will tool handle stock out situation at Warehouse?

A: Tool will suggests replacements. If the style is out of stock even in the warehouse tool will suggest the next closest replacement by dropping an attribute or rolling up one as per the set hierarchy.

Q: How will you consider stock outs, for computing style performance ranking while distribution?

A: Generally if you look at sales, if a style is selling week-on-week, and a sudden sale drop happens and picks up again next week, this will be smoothened and the software will recognize that was a student stock out.

Q: The store-style ranking happens at what level? Is the category considered?

A: The ranking happens at Store Performance + Attribute Group Performance (Category-Sub Category-Gender- MRP Bucket) + Style Performance.

Q: Does the planogram report indicate overstocking and understocking for quantity and revenue percentage mix both?

A: The report is at quantity level.

Q: Are in-transits included in distribution module ?

A: The in transits and PIP can be added to the store stock file itself.

IST (Inter Store Transfer)

Q: What is the ideal criteria for top seller cutoff in IST ?

A: The ideal benchmark for top seller is 25-30%, but if you want to consider more number of styles for IST you can run on 60% and if every style needs to be considered it should be ran on 100% benchmark.

Q: Can we do IBT between 2 stores only?

A: No , any customizable groupings can be done and IBT can be done between as many as stores required.

Regional Utilization

Q: Is depth increment automatically re-adjustable?

A: If you are doing weekly run then you can turn on the depth increment flag otherwise you can increase cover days to get more depth of sku.

Q: When online fulfillment is done through store will RU be able to help?

A: Yes, if stores has a separate storage capacity to stock online inventory MS Pro will treat it as a Warehouse/Distribution center.

Business Intelligence

Q: Apart from product outputs, are there reports where we can see the brand’s own data?
A: yes, there is a separate BI module in the product where a set of reports are there for analyzing the brands’ actual sales data. These reports have been made keeping in mind the key insights a user would like to draw from the data uploaded on MS Pro and cover most possible views of importance. In case a user feels there is a need for an additional view, he/she can reach out to MS Pro customer support and if the team finds it as an important and doable view, it can be added.

Q: At what level can sell through reports be seen ?

A: Store level, Partner level, Brand

Q: What are different types of Sell-through reports available?

A: In tool its calculated two ways:

1. Sell-through excluding warehouse stocks- (Sell-through for stores)

2. Sell-through including warehouse stocks- (Sell-through for Company)

3. Sell-through at an Attribute level

Q: Does MS Pro has an article wise ROS report?

A: Yes, the software have the desired reports in the BI dashboards.

Pricing

Q: Is MS Pro/MS Pro Enterprise suited for SMB (Small Medium Businesses)? Do you have pricing for SMB customers?

A:

• MS Pro is suited for SMB customers and MS Pro-Enterprise is suited for Large scale businesses.

• MS Pro Pricing – Depends upon business size and is negotiable. Connect with us for details

Q: What about the features of MS Pro and MS Pro Enterprise license – a comparison chart will help

A: MS Pro v/s MS Pro Enterprise Comparison – Click Here

Q: When we buy a license say for eg. Fashion business, then can we use it for all businesses – Fashion all brands, FMCG, others or for every business we need to buy a separate license?

A:

• MS Pro offers a unique concept of Project. You have the flexibility to create a different project within the same license for every business – Fashion or non-Fashion, thereby handling all brands under the same license.

Q: Do you have a performance-based licensing model wherein we pay you basis key B&M KPI’s like inventory turns/aging/stock availability at the right store at the right time?

A: No, MS Pro is a pure-play self usable SaaS model with standard pricing, connect with us for more details. You can use it for topseller management, planning, distribution, regional utilization, BI & Return Management. At this cost, you can work on unlimited data, unlimited sales channels, brands and styles. There are no other hidden costs like onboarding or support costs. On top of this we keep on upgrading our product and release new features almost every 2 weeks, this comes as an additional benefit with no extra costs involved.