Gaining ground with retailers through SPS Analytics insights

The challenge

Image One, a family-owned apparel company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, provides retailers nationwide with sports-licensed, resort and camp apparel.

The Image One sales niche is based on creative storytelling and quick turnaround. Their custom-designed, hyperlocal graphics tap into what makes each team or destination unique. Because this market is shaped by both seasonal sports schedules and unpredictable factors like team wins, losses and rankings, quick product turnaround is essential to meet shifting product demand.

Since the pivotal meeting when his first major retail account taught him the importance of EDI compatibility, Image One Vice President Kyle Luttrell has leveled the playing field by using key technology to navigate the competitive licensing space.

Image One steadily built a reputation of “doing quick better than anyone.” Customers trust in their ability to chase new markets with fast product turnaround—ready to react with lightning-quick design, product and delivery to capitalize on new demand and fill store shelves with must-have team apparel so that retailers can capture every dollar.

Having access to store-level inventory and sell-through data is key for making production decisions during playoffs, or when a sleeper team has a breakout season and goes from last to first in terms of product demand.

But to ultimately win more floor space from the heavy-hitting competition, they needed to figure out how to optimize all their sales and sell-through, in every season.

They also wanted to better understand and translate each retailer’s specific language, such as differing terms for sales metrics and varying item attributes. These inconsistencies made it difficult to share reports with team members, and nearly impossible to compare data across retailers.

The solution

The answer came out of left field when a friendly competitor revealed that their secret to strategic growth was using analytics, calling it a game changer for their business.

Having followed an earlier recommendation to switch to SPS Commerce to handle their EDI, Lutrell is now a firm believer in running his business with an optimized data platform. “My friend had told me, ‘SPS is like a Ferrari, and you’re driving a Pinto.’ I called SPS and said, ‘Show me your systems.’ And it truly was like driving a Ferrari compared to a Pinto. The user friendliness, all the buttons—even the sexiness of it was so much better!”

Encouraged to try SPS Analytics, Luttrell found immediate benefit in the ability to translate each retailer’s terms into a centralized language. He was also excited to explore the potential of layering different retailers’ data on top of each other to look for overall trends.

As he started navigating Performance Analytics, Luttrell focused on discovering how custom reports could boost their sales with a key account – a major sporting goods retailer.

Luttrell asked the buyer which metrics mattered the most to him, then started digging into the data. With the help of his SPS team, he built custom dashboards to pull weekly performance analytics reports, gathering the necessary information.

By uncovering buying trends and other insights, he was able to create data-driven, weekly buying plan recommendations. And most importantly, no guesswork was involved—every recommendation was verifiably backed up by the retailer’s own data.

“Because it’s their data that they’re giving me to analyze, they can cross-verify everything I’m saying to them. It’s literally using the retailer’s information to help them, which they can verify to make wise decisions.”

—Kyle Luttrell, Vice President

The results

The key account’s buyer soon realized that following the reorder recommendations not only boosted sales but also added value to their relationship and strengthened their partnership.

The wins for Image One were only just beginning. “All of a sudden, our business just started really picking up steam with them. We started getting more and more reorders, more and more business,” said Luttrell.

Whereas Image One was once a low-priority vendor with this retailer when it came to allocation of open to buy dollars, since proving their value as a trusted partner, they’ve risen to the top.

At this stage, they’re not only relied on for trusted recommendations, but based on their successful handling of strategic insights, they’ve been able to expand product offerings.

In the first year alone, investing in analytics has reaped impressive rewards. Image One has been able to grow their business by 51% over the past year with their key account.

Just like his helpful colleague recommended, Luttrell now believes that collaboration and performance analytics tools are vital for business as a supplier in the retail stratosphere.