Toolio Product Updates: August 10, 2022

Toolio updates this week include LY vs LLY Variant, Relative Filters in Master Data, and Time Frame Management Improvements!

Top Thought Leaders in Retail: Who Should You Be Following?

Eleven of the best and brightest thought leaders in retail to follow on LinkedIn and Twitter

What Retailers Must Consider when Planning During a Recession (a Webinar Recap)

Holiday planning is always an interesting beast in retail, but add a potential recession, linger supply chain "stuff" and unemployment fears and it gets even more intense. In this recap from our webinar on the topic, we highlight the takeaways for merch planning teams.

Welcome Our New VP of Sales

Our new VP of Sales shares his six principles for choosing a start-up that aligns to your own passions.

Toolio Product Updates: July 27, 2022

Toolio updates this week include Skipped Import Lines Visibility Improvements and Export Mapping Improvements!

Roles and Responsibilities for Retail Planners vs. Merchandisers vs. Allocators

Planners, buyers and allocators are all extremely important in the retail ecosystem. When each one owns their specific roles and responsibilities with authority and expertise, the business benefits and everyone wins - including the end consumer. 

Open-To-Buy Planning - What is OTB for Retail?

OTB planning is essential to bridging the gap between your retail operations and planning. Here's our guide to managing it like a rockstar.

3 Reasons Open-to-Buy is THE Critical Planning Tool for Retailers

OTB is an essential tool that retailers can use to buy better, handle their finances more efficiently, manage their inventory more seamlessly - and satisfy customers’ demands more predictably. Find out why.

UNTUCKit Invests in Agility and Scale

Read about why UNTUCKit chose Toolio as their partner for unprecedented growth

The Top Traits of a Great Merchandiser

In retail, merchandising is one of the most sought-after positions - and also among the most complex. While the job certainly comes with an undeniable cool factor, it requires the merchandiser to wear a lot of hats and own a lot of responsibilities...

Toolio Achieves ‘Built for NetSuite’ Status

Toolio announces the honor of achieving "Built for NetSuite" status to help organizations bring NetSuite data into Toolio to manage planning and merchandising processes end-to-end.

Toolio Product Updates: June 29, 2022

Toolio updates this week include Size Spread & Like for Like Forecast Profiles, Last Imported Time on MP & IP, Scheduled Report Deliveries for CSV & Excel, Scenario Locking Improvements, Metric Formatting Improvements, and Transfer Orders in Master Data!

To The Next Generation of Retailers…Say Good-Bye to Merchandise Planning Spreadsheets

Inventory is the most expensive asset for retailers, yet many still manage it in Excel, decades-old on-prem softwares or through homegrown solutions that long-ago lost priority to maintain and improve. The solution for next-gen retailers is a next-gen software, like Toolio.

4 Surprising Things I Learned During My First Job in Retail Planning

Retail planning careers can be perfect for those who love fashion, numbers and really, really big spreadsheets.

Toolio Product Updates: June 15, 2022

Toolio updates this week include Size Spreads in Item Plan Forecasting, Locking a scenario, Placeholder ID generation, Highlighting Duplicate Choices, and the ability to View Receipt Totals in PO Master Data!

Toolio Product Updates: May 31, 2022

Toolio updates this week include Clusters, Location, and Channel Improvements, Item Plan Like For Like Forecasting, Metric Separator, Scheduled Report Deliveries for Master Data, Deleted Line Handling Improvements, Data Visibility & Troubleshooting Improvements, Exporter Configuration Menu and completion of Merchandise Plan Migration!

A Note from Our New Head of Marketing

Why should you care about a new Head of Marketing at Toolio? Does this mean you’ll be getting SPAMMED by Toolio now? Or Toolio ads will begin following you around the internet like a creepy stalker? Well, honestly, that last one might start happening, but the mission of my position is bigger than selling people on Toolio; it’s about evangelizing for underserved disciplines.

Toolio Product Updates: May 20, 2022

Impact of increased lead times

Over the past 2+ years, we have been experiencing many shifts in business and supply chain trends, causing many changes to our expectations and process. As Planners we need to update our merch plans to incorporate the product mix changes and product flow shifts. These changes can cause both short and long term effects. We are all trying to figure out what the new KPI's and benchmarks will be based on the fluctuating variables.

Toolio Product Updates: April 8, 2022

Toolio updates this week include: Scheduled Report Deliveries, Conditional Formating Improvements, and Locking Cells.

Toolio Product Updates: March 18, 2022

Toolio updates this week include: Enable Email Notifications for Failed Imports & Removing a Conditional Formatting Rule at the Time of Creation

Toolio featured in CB Insights Retail Tech 100

We're proud to be featured in CB Insights Retail Tech 100: The top retail tech companies of 2022!

Toolio Product Updates: March 11, 2022

Toolio updates this week include: Multi-Dimensional Spreads within Assortment Plan, Importing plans into The Item Plan, an updated 39 week relative time frame, Like for Like forecasting in Assortment Plan, Grouping by Metrics in Item Planning, and a New Merchandise Plan interface.

Welcoming Our VP of Engineering

Mustafa Demir joined the team as VP of Engineering, and in this Behind the Scenes post he dives into what led him to Toolio.

Toolio Product Updates: January 21, 2022

We’re excited to share our latest updates: Gallery View in Assortment Plan and New Assortment Plan Out-of-the-Box Views.

Toolio Product Updates: January 7, 2022

We’re excited to share our latest updates: Timeline Visualization in Assortment Plan, Trend Visualization in Item Plan, Multi-level Grouping in Item Plan, Data Validation Errors in Assortment Plan, and Limiting user access in Settings.

Hindsight 2021

Hindsighting is the name of the game in retail. It is the practice of studying past performance, analyzing the top performers and the flops, and taking lessons on how to adapt plans in order to effectively reforecast for the future. Taking a cue from our favorite discipline of retail science, we would like to reflect on the past year at Toolio.

Toolio Product Updates: December 7, 2021

We’re excited to share our latest updates: Forecast using Sales History, Seeding Plan using Act/Plan, New Keyboard Shortcuts in Assortment Plan, and Conditional Formatting updates.

Toolio Product Updates: Nov 18, 2021

Our latest updates include: New Item Plan Out-of-the-Box Views, Updated Assortment Plan Rollups Reconciliation Table, Planning by % of TTL in Assortment Plan, Forecast Profiles, % of TTL Column in Spreads, and Conditional Formatting for Master Data Pages.

Toolio Product Updates: Nov 11, 2021

We’re excited to share our latest updates to Toolio. We’ve recently released New Out-of-the-Box views in Merchandise Plan, updated functionality to simplify forecasting in Item Plan, and (drumroll please…) keyboard shortcuts!

Why I Joined Toolio After Years of Merchandise Planning

Read why after 20+ years in the industry, Chris Conroy, ex VP of Merchandise Planning at Mack Weldon, joined our team to be a part of the solution he always dreamed of creating.

Toolio Product Updates: Oct 25, 2021

Our latest updates include: Data & Imports page moved to Settings and Plan Year saving to views.

Toolio Raises $8M - Merchandise Planning for Retail

Toolio’s Cloud-based Solution Fills Critical Gap in Next-Generation Commerce Tech Stack

Toolio Product Updates: Oct 18, 2021

With our latest updates you’re now able to merge scenarios in Item Plan and access Master Data on main navigation menu.

Toolio Product Updates: Oct 11, 2021

Toolio’s updates this week include: improved sorting UI and added ability to edit Merchandise Plan and Item Plan options.

Toolio Product Updates: October 4, 2021

Our latest updates include: improved user experience in Item Plan when generating inventory and receipts and ability to track import statuses.

Toolio Product Updates: September 27, 2021

Check out our newest updates in Toolio including generating Purchase Orders from Assortment Plan, highlights within Assortment Plan Spreads, and more visibility into integration imports.

Toolio Product Updates: September 20, 2021

Toolio’s update this week include: Spreads tab in Data & Imports, Item Planning Min/Max for Receipt Generation, and an integration to SAP.

Toolio Product Updates: September 13, 2021

Click here to read some of the newly released features at Toolio! We’ve updated the Product Mix dashboard in Assortment Plan, added abilities to Item Plan scenario playing, and given you more visibility into Generating Assortment Plans from Item Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: September 7, 2021

Click here to read some of the newly released features at Toolio! Updates include: dynamic inventory generation with start times, filters exposed to front-end users, and automated Plan data export to data warehouse.

Toolio Product Updates: August 30, 2021

Click here to read some of the newly released features at Toolio! Updates include Scenario Playing and Forecasting updates in Item Plan, ability to recreate SKUs in Assortment Plan, and improved visibility to formulas in the Merchandise Pivot View.

Toolio Product Updates: August 23, 2021

Toolio updates this week include: formula visibility in Assortment Plan views, date ranges visible for time frames in Assortment Planning, confirmation pop-up when generating Item Plan to Assortment Plan, and linking Assortment Plan to Item Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: August 16, 2021

With our latest updates you’re now able to: retrigger integration and add/delete metric rollups in Assortment Plan settings.

Toolio Product Updates: August 9, 2021

Toolio updates this week include: added Derived Attributes capabilities, specified user roles, created integration view, added % Var Plan vs Plan LY variant, added filters in Import Page.

Toolio Product Updates: August 2, 2021

We’re excited to share some of the newly released features at Toolio! Updates include Item Plan reconciliation, customizing your assortments, and improvements to forecasting and inventory planning in Item Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: July 26, 2021

With our latest updates you’re now able to take advantage of custom formulas in Assortment Plan and plan using the Gregorian Calendar in Merchandise Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: July 19, 2021

We’re excited to share our latest product updates which introduced Average Per Week metrics to Assortment Plan, % of TTL Improvements in Merchandise Plan, the ability to Reallocate Uncategorized plan values, and updates to the Data & Imports menu.

Toolio Product Updates: July 12, 2021

Toolio updates this week include new features to reporting time frames, change history tracking in Assortment Planning, and an enhanced week selector menu. Click here to learn more!

Toolio Product Updates: July 6, 2021

Check out our latest updates that introduced new features to Flowing On Order to Receipts, accessing your Raw Data from Item Plan, and using the Average per Week metric in Hindsight.

Toolio Product Updates: June 28, 2021

We’re excited to share some of the newly released features at Toolio! Updates include importing TSV file types, capturing the status of Assortment Plan line items, and utilizing placeholders to plan in Assortment Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: June 21, 2021

This week's updates introduce new features to Assortment Plan, Item Plan, and the Data Models in Toolio. Read more to learn about Custom Conditional Formatting Colors, Conditional Formatting in Item Plan, the introduction of the Assortment Plan Item Data Model, Forecasting in Item Plan with Actual Sales Seasonality, Customizing Variants directly in Item Plan, and the ability to set Output Metrics in Assortment Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: June 14, 2021

Check out our latest updates that introduced new features to Item Plan, Assortment Plan, and Data Models in Toolio. Read to learn more about exporting data from data models, planning by season in Item Plan, forecasting using custom volume trends, conditional formatting in Item Plan, and interconnectivity between Assortment Plan and Item Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: June 7, 2021

Our newest updates introduce new receipt forecasting functionality in Merchandise Plan, search functionality in the view selector menu, new volume methods for Item Plan forecasting, filter by metric capabilities in Item Plan, ability to edit your Product Master directly, and contextual export file names.

Toolio Product Updates: June 1, 2021

We’re excited to share some of the features that shipped this week at Toolio! Updates include seeding an Assortment Plan, Generating Item Plans from Assortment Plans, and Exporting Data from Item Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: May 24, 2021

Toolio updates this week include additional features in Assortment Plan, such as Like for Like updates and enhanced filtering, updated Sort features within Item Plan, new functionality included in the Gregorian Projection, and updates to the filters within the Data Models. Click here to learn more!

Toolio Product Updates: May 17, 2021

Check out our newest features released into Toolio including updates to the View Selector menu, additional relative time frames to utilize in Item Planning, the ability to seed by various weights in Merchandise Planning, and enhanced product images across the platform. We’ve also continued to build out of the box views to help you manage your data in Toolio.

Toolio Product Updates: May 10, 2021

Toolio’s newest updates include enhancements to the Merchandise Plan, Assortment Plan, and Item Plan modules! Read to learn more about our recent product updates that introduced Conditional Formatting improvements, the ability to Pivot by Attributes in Item Plan, and support for Top Down Planning in Assortment Plan.

How to Pick Merchandise Planning Attributes

For top down planning, your organization needs to determine the attributes to use. Given the high number of attributes that you will already be using for slicing and dicing reports, figuring out which attributes to use for top down planning can be a challenge. This post covers quick guidelines on how to figure out which planning attributes to pick for your business.

Knix Joins Toolio to Become More Agile as They Grow

Knix, a direct to consumer intimate apparel brand that is re-inventing intimates for real life, has joined Toolio to help them scale and become more agile in planning and merchandising.

Toolio Product Updates: May 3, 2021

Toolio’s newest updates include enhancements to the Merchandise Plan, Assortment Plan, and Item Plan modules! Read to learn more about our recent product updates that introduced the Item Plan Time Range Selector, released new Out of the Box Views on all modules, and improved Merchandise Plan Pivot Functions.

Toolio Product Updates: April 26, 2021

Toolio’s newest updates include enhancements to Item Plan, Attributes, and Shopify Integration! Read to learn more about our recent product updates that introduced the Sorting feature to Item Plan, added core attributes to the attribute settings menu, and released support for multiple Shopify stores.

How to Generate Stock Keeping Units (SKUs)

In this guide we break down the common approaches to generating SKUs.

Toolio Product Updates: April 19, 2021

Toolio is regularly improving to enhance your experience! Read to learn more about our recent product updates that introduced Conditional Formatting in Merchandise Planning, updates to the Assortment Plan Product Mix and visibility into plan dates, and On Order Flowing in Item Plan.

Toolio Product Updates: April 12, 2021

Toolio is constantly improving to further optimize your planning workflows! Read to learn more about our recent product updates that introduced Assortment Plan Grand Totals, Assortment Plan Attributes in Settings, Assortment Plan Multi Select, and Item Plan Output Metrics.

Toolio Product Updates: April 5, 2021

Toolio is constantly improving to further optimize your planning workflows! Read to learn more about our recent product updates that introduced Scenario Saving to Views, Metric Totals in Item Planning, and the Variance Metric Variant.

Outerknown Joins Toolio for Data-driven Merchandising

Outerknown, an apparel brand founded by pro surfer Kelly Slater and rooted in radical sustainability and circularity, has joined #Toolio to help them become more dynamic and data-driven in planning and merchandising.

Mack Weldon joins Toolio to optimize planning processes

Mack Weldon, a leading DTC brand reinventing men's basics has joined #Toolio to help them scale their merchandising organization and optimize planning processes.

The Next-Generation Commerce Stack

Retail and its supporting tech landscape have undergone a massive transformation over the past decade, which was only accelerated by the recent pandemic. What sets leading retailers apart is their adoption of modern technology across the entire business. In this post, we talk about the key differentiators of modern commerce technology and the combination of solutions that make up the tech stack used by the industry's most innovative, high-growth retailers.

Toolio Helps Verishop Stay Nimble Amid Rapid Growth

Verishop is an industry leader when it comes to building and leveraging technology within retail. Verishop needed a solution that could help them scale their planning processes, improve visibility and increase inventory planning & management accuracy. Today, with the support of the Toolio Merchandising Platform, Verishop has the ability to plan and forecast at the most granular levels and quickly react to change by leveraging real-time data and insights.

Free Template: How to Calculate Size Curves

Size curves, also known as size breaks, define the ideal ratio between different sizes of a Color Choice or a Style. This post covers how to calculate the optimal size curve for a given product and walks you through how to use our free Size Curve Generator Template.

How to Calculate Weeks of Supply and Set Target Levels

Weeks of Supply, also known as WOS, is a key performance indicator (KPI) that all retailers should be watching closely to understand the health of their inventory. This article covers how to use WOS and the different ways of calculating it.

Toolio Product Update: Seeding from the Past

When you are building a new Merchandise Plan in Toolio, Seeding allows you to populate your current plan with historical data or a plan from the past in order to jump-start your plan creation process. By seeding from the past, you can save time and easily inherit historical seasonality curves, product mixes and important ratios like Markdown % and Return %.

Toolio Product Update: Scenario Playing

Toolio's Scenario Playing feature serves two main purposes: planning for multiple scenarios at the same time and snapshotting old plans to access them later in time. With Excel, this would require you to have duplicate plan spreadsheets or have multiple plan versions (such as original plan, working plan, last forecast, etc.) all living in separate worksheets. See more details on how to use it within this post!

Google Sheet Scripts for Merchandising

We’ve written a handful of Google Sheet Scripts to give us additional custom formulas that help with many crtical merchandising workflows. Check out this post for a list of custom formulas, along with links to our public Google Sheet that demonstrate the extended capability.

Initial Markup (IMU) Vs. Maintained Markup (MMU)

This post covers the difference between Initial Markup (IMU) and Maintained Markup (MMU).

Navigating the New Normal: A Guide for Merchants and Planners

Looking back at our Post-Covid predictions and the strategies we’ve observed from our customers, we believe retailers, and more specifically, merchandising organizations, should focus on these five actions to build more resilience and emerge as leaders in the next-generation of retail.

Free Template + Guide: How to Use Excel for Item Planning and Replenishment

Step by step guide on how to use the Toolio Item Planning template to better manage your core items and ensure they never go out of stock.

The Retail Calendar for Better Merchandising and Sales Reporting: Free Tool + Guide

Click here to get the most up to date free retail calendar and a guide on how to best use it to accurately compare your sales data.

Post-Covid Prediction 5: The leaner, distributed, and more productive workforce

Organizations will need to break old paradigms to make way for a new wave of workforce transformation. In order to survive, retailers will need to figure out a way to do more with less, remotely. Winning companies will look to technology to support better information sharing and collaboration among remote teams and automate wherever they can to maintain productivity with a leaner workforce.

Post-Covid Prediction 4: Moving beyond DTC

Distribution strategies will remain in flux for the months and years to come, but when the dust settles, brands will have more control over distribution channels and points of sale will proliferate. Wholesale will morph into new formats such as leased spaces and online marketplaces, which will allow brands to get closer to their customers.

Post-Covid Prediction 3: The Resilient Supply Chain

After the pandemic, supply chains will not only be optimized for cost, but also stability, flexibility and speed. Retailers will prioritize having a diversified production network, reduced inventory levels and more redundant fulfillment mechanisms.

Post-Covid Prediction 2 - Seasonless Assortments

Post Covid-19, the winning brands and retailers will break out of the vicious markdown cycle with a larger base of timeless products complemented with smaller, carefully planned and timely introduced collections.

Prediction 1: Retailers Will Leverage Technology

Toolio’s first prediction about the retail landscape post Covid-19 looks at the increasingly complex planning environment retailers will face and explains why they will need to embrace technology to manage this.

5 Predictions for the Post-Covid Retail Landscape

How will the retail landscape look post-Covid? Toolio’s 5 predictions point to retail trends we can expect to see.

Free Template + Guide: How to Use Excel for Merchandise Financial Planning

Step by step instructions on how to use the Toolio merchandise financial planning and open to buy template.

A Guide to Effective Merchandise Financial Planning

In this guide, we break down the main steps you should be taking to create an effective merchandise financial plan.

Fundamental Retail Math Formulas

This is a list of the most important retail math formulas that everyone in the industry should know and track in order to evaluate performance.

Retail Terms Every Modern Retailer Should Know

These are the most up-to-date retail terms and definitions that everyone in the industry should know.