Boots The Chemists (BTC) – the leading UK health and beauty retailer – has approached this problem by outsourcing specific Christmas merchandise deliveries. These deliveries are scheduled at different times of the day from ‘normal’ deliveries. In this way, while not dealing with the issues created by unpredictable demand, store operations can apply appropriate resources to unload vehicles and put away directly to shelf or indirectly to stockroom. Historically, promotional events in BTC were a fairly hit and miss affair with hundreds of products being promoted within a four-week window. There was a high reliance on good luck for all the elements to come together prior to the start of the promotional period. Inevitably some products, display aids and show material arrived late. Store operations at the end of the supply chain then gad to try and mount the promotions with what had been delivered. Consumers were dissatisfied with the result and sales were lost. The solution was to create a dedicated promotions team within the categories. The teams masterminded the overall promotional plan and were made responsible for the delivery of products, display aids and show materials into the national distribution centers (NDCs). A successful trial was then conducted whereby most of the work required to mount the promotion was done by logistics staff in the regional distribution centers (RDCs) for each of the individual stores. The trial comprised sending allocations of all the promotional requirements to the RDCs from the NDCs. Staff in the RDCs then picked products for a week’s anticipated sales (based on historical data for that line by individual store) into totes for direct-to shelf delivery together with appropriate display aids and show material. The totes were then placed on dollies, rolled on and off vehicles, and wheeled into the shop to the correct gondola end (end of free-standing ‘island’ shelf in a store). After three days, EPOS data was reviewed, and an accurate prediction of future sales to the end of the promotion was made. This was then used to calculate future replenishment requirements. Finally the merchandising teams were invited to devise clever ways to make shelves look full at the end of the promotion without using a lot of stock. This resulted in fewer ‘remainders’ from a promotion that had to be written down. BTC is currently implementing its design for a transformed end-to-end supply chain and the work described above is being gradually rolled out. (Source: Philip Matthews, formerly Supply Chain Director, BTC)