Rent-A-Center, the largest US rent-to-own operator, has implemented a returns forecasting solution in several hundred stores and is continuing to roll out across the retailer’s chain of nearly 3,000 stores nationwide.
Rent-A-Center desired to have better visibility to inventory in its stores, particularly for returned goods. Without this transparency, the company did not always have the right merchandise in the right locations, affecting its customer service and margins alike.
The centralized returns forecasting solution from Predictix has given Rent-A-Center a forward view into returns, empowering its executives to know exactly how much new inventory to distribute to each store. With the ability to better manage inventory, Rent-A-Center improves the shopping experience for its customers.
With its rent-to-own model, Rent-A-Center faces unique business challenges and its existing solution did not have a sophisticated method to forecast returns. For inventory managers to accurately determine how much stock they need to send to stores, they must understand how many returns they can expect and when. For example, a customer could purchase a television with a one-year rent-to-own contract and decide to return it four months into the contract, while another customer could return one after eight months.
With the Predictix team's expertise in retail and the solid forecasting science they weave into every application, they delivered a solution that enabled Rent-A-Center to accurately forecast product returns. Now, Rent-A-Center can factor expected returns into its merchandise orders for more tightly controlled inventory in every store.
"We have been extremely happy with the relationship we've built with Predictix and the solution they've delivered us," said Joel Mussat, Vice President of Strategic Planning for Rent-A-Center. "By integrating Predictix with our existing enterprise systems, we can improve our overall decision-making capabilities and replenishment processes, which is a win-win for Rent-A-Center and for our customers."
Source: http://www.predictix.com/