Critical analysis of inventory management with reference to garments in retailing
description: The Major focus of this empirical research is to find out the relationships between various factors of inventory management in medium format garment retail shops that affect the sales. Samples of 100 retail shops were surveyed and the data collected was analyzed. Garment retailing is broadly classified under Men??s garment, women??s garments and Kids garments. The garment retail segment has seen good growth in recent years, thanks to the good economic environment in the country. This study is concentrated on medium format garment retailers who are facing lot of problems. Some of the problems are tremendous competitive pressure from large format stores & international brands, increasing overheads and high rentals. To counter these pressures, the medium format retailers must try to consolidate their operations, reduce their overheads like high inventory, faster inventory turnover The empirical results shows that the medium format garment retailers are having a positive outlook even though they are having tough competition. This may be because of the good economy and surge in disposable incomes of the urban population. The study also shows that by managing inventory in a tight manner and using latest technology to manage the store will ensure minimal losses and maximize customer satisfaction leading to higher sales realization. Majority of the retailers placed extra orders to take care of demand uncertainties and errors in forecasting. The average number of customers lost due to non availability of right garment was three customers per day. The study found that there is a mismatch between order frequency and supply frequency leading to higher safety stocks. This must be bridged and suppliers must increase their response time to match retailers order cycles. Shrinkage data was not available with majority of retailers. Medium format retailers are not tracking shrinkage with frequent audits and analysis. Some branded retailers who had some data attributed shrinkage on emp…
creator: . C Om Prakash
source: Management Studies
date: 2012