Finish Line Deploys Merchandise Planning Solution to Modernize Omnichannel Merchandising

Footwear and apparel retailer The Finish Line, Inc. has rolled out a merchandise financial planning solution across its 950 U.S. locations and its digital channels. 

The TXT Retail Merchandise Planning Solution from TXT Retail, an Aptos Company, supports Finish Line to set its global targets for all products, brands and channels they serve, while harmonizing buying decisions to expected demand. As the season progresses, the solution is expected to help to easily simulate and make course corrections to keep a firm handle on the achievement of margin and inventory investment targets. Finish Line is also using the TXT Retail application to support collaborative planning with key vendors. 

“By partnering with TXT Retail, Finish Line has advanced our merchandising processes to better serve our customers,” said Brad Eckhart, SVP, Planning & Allocation, Finish Line. “The use of TXT Retail’s industry-leading solution supports our objective to provide seamless customer experiences and the best, localized product selection to our shoppers. At the same time, we have optimized our inventory investment to deliver the most profitable product mixes.” 

The first phase of the Finish Line deployment was completed in October 2017 and included all aspects of merchandise financial planning, including strategic planning, preseason financial planning, in-season forecasting and open-to-buy management. With this successful roll-out, Finish Line established one version of the truth across its organization and created a starting point for assortment plans by location.

During the next project phase, Finish Line is focusing on store planning and clustering, key item planning, and assortment strategy to create customer-focused assortments that meet localized demand. For its TXT Retail implementations, Finish Line is leveraging the TXT AgileFit deployment methodology, which allows the project to be delivered on extremely tight timelines.

“The collaborative working relationship between TXT Retail and Finish Line sets the stage for success,” added Eckhart. “We valued TXT Retail’s planning expertise and the willingness they demonstrated to implement the best merchandise planning application to fit the needs of our customers and business, under budget and on schedule.”