If the last time you used the term “SAT” was when you took the Scholastic Aptitude Test, you might get a familiar feeling when you hear about the SAT for Walmart suppliers. Segmentation? What are we talking about here – worms? We have to analyze segments? Huh?
That may not be how you felt about the SATs, but even if you did, you don’t have to feel that way about the Segmentation Analysis Tool (SAT).
The SAT tool looks at sales of a given item in the various stores that carry it. The tool is run on one item at a time and will cluster the stores where your item is sold into as many as 10 equal groups — that is, segments. If your item had sales in 3,000 stores and you chose 10 segments, for example, your report would show 300 stores in each segment. The first segment would have the top-performing 300 stores.
The tool will summarize things like sales, markdowns, and inventory for each of these segments. This enables both the supplier and the Replenishment Manager to identify the most productive stores as well as the stores where your items don’t fly off the shelves as quickly. Insights into inventory can make all the difference in avoiding out of stocks — and in improving performance, too.
Walmart uses the data from this tool for decision making in replenishment, so you’ll want to be able to run it and make sense of the numbers. Doing so will help you make data-driven recommendations that you can support. (Way to be more popular with your buyer!)
