Finland’s leading bookstore chain adopts the advanced tool to keep pace with demand driven by trends and evolving customer preferences
Suomalainen Kirjakauppa, Finland’s largest nationwide bookstore chain, has strengthened their relationship with RELEX Solutions, a provider of unified supply chain and retail planning solutions. With the RELEX assortment planning solution, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa aims to efficiently manage their products and deliver a seamless omnichannel experience to their customers.
Founded in 1912, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa offers a wide selection of books, office supplies, gifts, and craft supplies. They serve customers through 55 stores across Finland and an online store. As one of RELEX’s oldest customers, having partnered since 2008, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa has implemented a range of solutions including forecasting and replenishment, and integrated supply and workload forecasting, achieving impressive results.
It is essential for businesses to understand how well their assortments are performing, to be able to respond to changes quickly. Suomalainen Kirjakauppa manages an extensive assortment of over 20,000 SKUs and lacked sufficient tools to effectively analyze their assortments. Product managers relied on manual work, with multiple Excel documents to manage demand. To stay competitive in the dynamic literary retail environment driven by social media trends and evolving customer preferences, tailored to each store, they needed more efficient tools.
Suomalainen Kirjakauppa will benefit from an agile and efficient approach to managing their rapidly changing assortment following the implementation of the assortment planning solution. With the unified approach from RELEX, merchandisers can leverage forecast, inventory, sales, pricing, and product data within the same platform to produce comprehensive reports, gaining insight into product performance at any stage of its lifecycle.
With strategic SKU management, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa will have the right tools to make informed decisions on products to retain or discontinue, enabling them to plan their category assortment effectively to meet customer demand and sales objectives, ultimately driving greater profitability.
“Having already experienced measurable and impressive results from RELEX, we have seen the benefits of their innovative approach. Social media trends and evolving customer preferences have since showcased a need for us to ensure we have the right products that resonate well with our customers. With this new solution, we will gain comprehensive insights that will assist us in achieving our goals to provide a seamless omnichannel experience for our customers”, Timo Kauppila, Director, Supply Chain and Analytics, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa.
“It has been incredibly exciting to work on a new product area with one of our oldest customers. Through a series of workshops, we gained a deep understanding of their needs, forming a mutual understanding that we can help them achieve their goals. This collaboration showcases our ability to provide value and innovation, ultimately allowing Suomalainen Kirjakauppa to deliver exceptional value to their customers,” said Tiina Kanninen, Vice President, Customer Success, RELEX Solutions.