SAN FRANCISCO -- (May 24, 2022) -- MakerSights, the only collaborative assortment management workspace, is exhibiting at OutDoor by ISPO in Munich, June 12 - 14, 2022. The company empowers consumer-obsessed brands, like Brooks® Running, icebreaker®, and KEEN, Inc. (KEEN), with the consumer data needed to deliver more products that people love while radically reducing waste. Tim Janaway, the company’s newest advisor and former general manager of outdoor & golf at adidas®, will also be in attendance to connect with retail brands and share best practices for driving change throughout their organizations in service of becoming smarter-to-market.

“Transitioning to a consumer obsessed strategy backed by the kind of data and analytics that, currently, only MakerSights provides is not going to happen overnight, but one brands need to make, both for the business and to meet critical sustainability goals,” said Janaway. “It requires vision to make that transformational step throughout the organization and you have to fully commit to letting data inform decisions to appreciate how the workload balance shifts. Done correctly, taking a data-led approach to product development and assortment management leads to significant benefits, achievable with a net reduction in work.”

The company’s booth, #309, will feature the latest analytics capabilities available in the MakerSights Workspace, including Line Efficiency, which helps brands drive SKU productivity and do more with less. Line Efficiency provides product and merchant teams with the incremental Reach, or value add, of each product within an assortment. The interactive graph makes it easy to assess the implications of adding or dropping a product from the assortment, as well as identify cannibalizing SKUs and cut the long tail. 

New MakerSights Customers

Brooks Running, the premier footwear and apparel brand focused on inspiring the runner in everyone, has its Product, Merchandising, and Consumer Insights teams in the MakerSights Workspace testing new product concepts with target consumers and gathering consumer behavior data. The consumer sentiment and behavior data will help the footwear brand better understand its core and aspirational consumers, as well as drive SKU productivity across assortments and deliver the right styles in the right colors at the right time to meet consumer demand. 

“Colorways are big sales driver for Brooks so we were excited to launch our MakerSights testing program with a color retrospective and better understand which palettes are resonating and where so we can refine our color strategy to match consumer demand moving forward,” said Brice Newton, Director of Global Footwear Merchandising, Brooks Running. “The Buckets feature is a game-changer. It is exactly what we needed to visually slice and dice data by color category, styles, regions, etc. and uncover insights that will help us optimize the line. We’re looking forward to ramping up earlier stage product testing and using consumer data to drive alignment across the organization from product to planning to marketing and sales.”

‍icebreaker, a purpose-led, New Zealand-born brand known for its innovative, natural performance Merino fiber-based clothing, leverages MakerSights to evaluate and validate newness prior to creating samples, as well as to inform buy depths and arm sales teams with data when speaking with the company’s wholesale partners. Testing products, like men’s and women’s tees, during the early stages of development enables the company to cut low-performing concepts much sooner, thereby reducing the time, money, and resources wasted on developing samples and products that ultimately would not have been adopted to the line.

“The consumer data we’ve collected through MakerSights has quickly become invaluable throughout product development and go to market, helping us save time, money, and resources,” said Senior Director of Merchandising Hortense Carlier. “Our design team relies on MakerSights to figure out a lot of the smaller details, like graphic sizes and logo placement, that make a big impact while, on the other end of the process, our sales team leans on MakerSights in their conversations with our wholesale partners. It’s hard for our partners to disagree with our proposals once they see the data that clearly shows their consumers in Germany or the United States, for example, want the styles and colors we’re recommending.”

Driven by a passion to make the outside and trades accessible for all, KEEN is a values-led, family-owned footwear brand from Portland, Oregon committed to creating original and versatile products, doing good through the KEENEffect, and inspiring everyone to live with no ceiling, together. The brand recently implemented MakerSights across its men’s and women’s Outside categories to learn more about both current and aspirational consumers around the globe, as well as better understand where KEEN fits into the global competitive landscape of performance and outdoor footwear. MakerSights will also help the product and merchandising teams make data-informed decisions when adopting newness, finalizing assortments, and investment depths for each SKU.

“Gaining a deep understanding of our fans is a top priority at KEEN, and the data MakerSights has provided after just a few tests has already added much value, as we strive to learn more,” said KEEN Senior Director of Global Merchandising Lindsey Elliott. “Understanding how our fans shop, where and why they travel, and what kinds of activities they pursue are all key details to determine the kinds of footwear our fans need. MakerSights will enable us to gain insights sooner, and shift to a demand-driven model where our fan’s sentiments guide our product and merchandising decisions and allow us to provide meaningful solutions.”

For more information about MakerSights, please visit booth #309 at OutDoor by ISPO on Floor 1 in Hall 1 of Atrium 3 at the MOC Event Center Messe München.

‍

About MakerSights

The retail industry is one of the biggest polluters on the planet. At MakerSights, we know there is a better way. Consumer obsession powers growth and sustainability, so we’ve reimagined assortment management with the consumer at the heart of every decision. MakerSights is the only collaborative assortment management workspace that embeds actionable consumer data into product development, merchandising, and go-to-market workflows. Our customers are smart-to-market, consumer-obsessed brands, including Madewell, New Balance, and Champion, that are radically reducing economic and environmental waste by streamlining the concept-to-consumer process. For more information visit www.MakerSights.com.

‍