Retailer's Rapid Growth Necessitates Change In Demand-Forecasting Solution

September 2012 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

By Bob Johns, associate editor

Luxury lingerie retailer Journelle implemented a new solution to optimize demand forecasting, inventory planning, and replenishment.

Rapid retail growth through brick-and-mortar and e-commerce can be a great thing, but it also presents its challenges. This is something that Claire Chambers, CEO and founder of Journelle, found out right away as the luxury lingerie retailer expanded both its physical locations and its online presence. Operating in the highly competitive luxury lingerie space, Chambers is fighting the high-end department stores and specialty lingerie retailers, leaving precious little room for inventory mistakes.

Journelle currently has three retail locations in the New York area, along with a thriving e-commerce site. The company was founded by Chambers, featured in Inc. magazine’s “30 Under 30 — America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs,” in 2007, and introduced an e-commerce site in 2009. The company went from $1.7 million in revenue in 2008 to a projected $6 million in 2012 through all channels. Up until late 2011, Chambers and her staff manually entered all orders and created their own forecasting by hand. After implementing a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system from NetSuite, Chambers decided to focus on order management. She began by looking for a cloud-based solution. “I wanted to be able to manage all of our stores and channels at once. The cloud-based solutions were the only ones that gave me real-time visibility into stock levels and sales across the board,” she explains.