Caleres
Background
Caleres (formerly Brown Shoe Company) is a diverse portfolio of global brands, operating over 1,200 retail stores under the brand name Famous Footwear, and also operates 100 specialty retail stores in the United States, Canada, and China under the Naturalizer name.
Challenges
Caleres needed an analytical solution to help them prioritize development opportunities across the country. They had reached a point where store development needed to aggressively address market voids and the changing demographics in their customer base. Existing analytical tools available to them were not designed to address the complexities that they faced.
Caleres had not built a site model in many years to support the execution and creation of successful individual site and market location strategies. After a thorough evaluation of vendors in the space, they quickly realized that Tango had the depth of capabilities they required. Caleres selected Tango due to the unique approach that Tango had which included departmental specific sales forecasting as well as the integration of Ecommerce analytics into the effort. The departmental sales forecasting (e.g., men’s casual, women’s casual, children’s shoes, accessories, etc.) was viewed as having significant cross functional value to marketing and merchandising in addition to real estate.
The Solution
Market Prioritization & Site Selection
Tango started by helping Caleres prioritize markets and better allocate their capital spend through an optimization modules, which enabled them to understand the market level opportunity before drilling down into individual sites and location. Caleres also started to utilize Tango’s proprietary Smart Analogs which enabled them to match existing store performance to the core variables driving sales forecasts for new locations.
Cannibalization Analysis
Caleres was challenged with understanding the affect new locations were having on their existing stores, so Tango built a sales forecasting which included cannibalization methodologies. The models also allowed them to conduct reverse cannibalization analysis to help them understand what happened to existing stores if they decided to close one of their locations, and the impact on existing store sales.
Customer Intelligence & Trade Area Analysis
When it came to understanding their customer, they had data from a strong loyalty program which Tango used to help them track customer shopping patterns. Tango also helped Caleres understand the extent of trade areas based on the various types of malls their locations were in. For example, Tango helped them answer: How far does a closed mall pull from versus an external shopping center location? What is the difference in trade areas of an A versus B mall—or a super-regional, regional or community mall?
Category-Level Merchandising
Tango also helped them merchandise individual locations to better address the requirements of the customer base. Not only did Caleres now understand total projected volume, but also volume at the category level—for example, how many children’s shoes, women’s boots or men’s dress shoes would sell. This department-by-department focus helps them merchandise their store properly and allocate appropriate space to each department within any given location.
Mobile Capabilities & Field Tools
Caleres is also taking advantage of Tango’s mobile capabilities, which enable territory real estate managers to run a site through the system to quickly visualize the trade area, harvest demographics, and understand competitive threats before providing the site to their market research department.
We know—it takes two to Tango
When you choose Tango, you get more than quality real estate tools. You get a team of experts in your corner. As pioneers in IWMS, SLM, GIS, and predictive analytics, we bring more than three centuries of cumulative experience to your organization’s goals and challenges.
Whatever your real estate strategy, we can help you refine, execute, and maximize it. Let’s find your real estate’s real value.