📌 At a glance: A leading European menswear brand implemented Increff's Inter Store Transfer (IST) module — part of the Merchandising Software suite — across 600+ stores, achieving a 30% improvement in sales quantity, 24% healthier inventory, 70% movement of slow-moving stock to higher-ROS locations, and 35 new potential Never-Out-Of-Stock (NOOS) styles identified.
What Is This Case Study About?
Every fashion retailer knows the end-of-season problem: some stores are sitting on unsold inventory in sizes that other stores have already sold out of. The stock exists — it's just in the wrong place. This case study is about how a leading European menswear brand used Increff's Inter Store Transfer module and inventory management system to fix that structural problem at scale — moving slow inventory to where it would actually sell, completing size sets, and turning markdown-bound stock into full-price revenue.
Client Overview
- Type: Leading European menswear fashion brand
- Region: Europe
- Industry: Fashion and apparel retail
- Scale: 600+ stores
- Solution: Increff Merchandising Software — Inter Store Transfer (IST) Module
- Objective: Move slow-moving inventory from underperforming stores to higher-demand locations, complete size sets for fast-moving styles, reduce end-of-season losses, and improve stock health through data-driven inventory optimization across the store network
Challenges Faced: Why End-of-Season Surplus Is a Structural Problem, Not a Seasonal One
Post-season markdowns in fashion retail are often treated as inevitable. They're not. They're the result of inventory that was allocated to the wrong stores, and never corrected during the season. For a brand operating 600+ stores across Europe, that structural misalignment was recurring every season — and the cost was significant.
1. Stores left with unsold inventory in mismatched sizes after every season
Each sale period ended the same way: certain stores holding surplus inventory in sizes that hadn't moved, while other stores had sold out of those exact sizes weeks earlier. The inventory existed across the network. The system to redistribute it didn't.
2. Surplus stock sold at heavy discounts — margins eroded every season
Without a mechanism to move slow inventory to stores where demand existed, the only lever available was markdown. Deep discounts moved the stock, but at a cost to margins and brand positioning that compounded over time.
3. Missing sizes breaking size sets and causing lost sales
A menswear customer looking for a medium who finds only smalls and larges on the rack doesn't buy the small. They leave. Incomplete size sets are a silent but consistent source of lost sales — and without an inventory management system tracking size availability across the network, there was no way to systematically fix them.
4. Slow movers occupying floor space at the wrong stores
Piled-up slow-moving inventory wasn't just a margin problem. It was a floor space problem. Stock that wasn't selling was physically occupying space that top sellers and new launches needed — limiting the brand's ability to merchandise effectively at store level.
5. No granular, data-driven view of stock health across 600+ stores
Managing inter-store inventory decisions manually across 600+ locations isn't operationally viable. Without a business intelligence dashboard providing SKU-level visibility into stock health, ROS by store, and size availability gaps, transfer decisions were either guesswork or not happening at all.
Increff's Solution: Data-Driven Inter Store Transfer and Inventory Optimization at Scale
Increff's IST module — part of its Merchandising Software platform — gave the brand the inventory management system it needed to make stock redistribution decisions at scale, with data, and without manual effort.
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SKU-Level Demand Analysis Across the Store Network
The IST module analyzed demand and sales patterns at the SKU level across all 600+ stores — identifying which styles were slow-moving at specific locations and where the same styles had unmet demand. This isn't a category-level view. It's granular enough to see that a particular jacket in navy, size M, is sitting unsold in Lyon while Paris is out of stock in that exact combination.
Automated Inter-Store Transfer Recommendations
Based on that analysis, the system generated transfer recommendations — moving slow-moving inventory from low-ROS stores to higher-ROS locations where demand existed. 70% of identified slow-moving stock was successfully moved to higher-performing stores. The brand didn't need a team of planners to build those recommendations manually. The inventory optimization engine did it, repeatably, at any frequency the brand chose — multiple times within a season, for select merchandise or the entire range.
Size Set Completion for Fast-Moving Styles
For fast-moving styles running low on inventory, the IST module identified missing sizes across the network and completed size sets by routing the right units from stores with excess depth. Sales lost to incomplete size sets — previously invisible and unquantified — were recovered. 35 new potential NOOS (Never-Out-Of-Stock) styles were identified in the process, informing future buying decisions.
Business Intelligence Dashboard for Ongoing Stock Health Visibility
The IST module's business intelligence dashboard gave the merchandising team ongoing, granular visibility into stock health across all stores — healthy vs. unhealthy inventory ratios, ROS by location, size availability gaps, and transfer impact tracking. With that visibility, inventory optimization decisions moved from reactive (post-season firefighting) to proactive (in-season course correction).
Store Assortment Correction
Beyond transfers, the tool corrected the overall assortment of each store — ensuring the right mix of attributes (silhouette, fit, fabric, colour) was maintained based on each location's unique demand profile. Top sellers got floor space. Slow movers moved out. New launches had room to perform.
Results: Measurable Impact Delivered by Increff
"70% of slow-moving inventory successfully transferred to higher-ROS stores — turning end-of-season markdown risk into in-season revenue, across 600+ locations."
Key Outcomes Summary
- 30% improvement in sales quantity across the network following IST implementation — driven by better inventory placement, not additional stock
- 24% healthier inventory post-implementation, with right-sized, right-located stock reducing write-off risk and improving working capital
- 70% of slow-moving inventory successfully transferred to higher-ROS stores — converting markdown-bound stock into sellable, full-price inventory
- 35 new potential NOOS styles identified through SKU-level demand analysis, informing future buying and reducing stockout risk on proven performers
- Size set completion recovered sales previously lost to missing sizes — a revenue leak that's hard to measure but consistently significant in fashion retail
- Business intelligence dashboard gave the merchandising team ongoing, in-season visibility into stock health across 600+ stores — replacing end-of-season guesswork with proactive inventory optimization
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an Inter Store Transfer (IST) module in retail inventory management?
An Inter Store Transfer module is a tool within a retail inventory management system that identifies imbalances in stock distribution across a store network — and generates recommendations to move inventory from locations where it's underperforming to locations where it's in demand. In fashion retail, this is particularly valuable because the same style can be overstocked at one store and sold out at another simultaneously. IST turns that network-wide inventory into a shared, optimized pool rather than a set of isolated locations each managing their own surplus.
How does inventory optimization reduce end-of-season markdown dependency in fashion retail?
Markdowns happen when inventory sits in the wrong place too long. The stock isn't necessarily bad — it's misallocated. Inventory optimization through inter-store transfers corrects that misallocation during the season, moving stock to where demand exists before the season ends and discounting becomes the only option. The result is more inventory sold at full price, better margins, and less capital tied up in clearance. The 30% improvement in sales quantity this brand achieved came largely from this mechanism — the same inventory, better distributed.
What is a business intelligence dashboard in the context of retail merchandising?
A business intelligence dashboard in retail merchandising provides real-time, granular visibility into how inventory is performing across the store network — stock health ratios, rate of sale by location, size availability, and the impact of transfer decisions. Without it, merchandising teams are making allocation and transfer decisions based on periodic manual reviews that are always slightly behind. With it, they can see exactly which stores have unhealthy inventory, which styles are running low on key sizes, and where transfers should be prioritized — and act within the season rather than after it.
How does Increff's IST module handle size set management across a large store network?
The system tracks size availability at the SKU level across all stores simultaneously — identifying which fast-moving styles have incomplete size sets and where the missing sizes are sitting unused. Transfer recommendations then route the right units from stores with excess depth to stores with size gaps. This is the kind of analysis that's impossible to do manually at 600+ store scale with any regularity. The IST module runs it at whatever frequency the brand needs — multiple times per season, for the full range or a specific subset of merchandise.
Why is stock health a critical metric for European fashion retailers?
Stock health measures the proportion of a store's inventory that is actively contributing to sales versus sitting idle. Unhealthy stock — slow movers, broken size sets, styles past their peak demand window — occupies floor space, ties up working capital, and eventually becomes markdown pressure. For a European menswear brand managing seasonal collections across hundreds of stores, stock health directly correlates with gross margin performance. A 24% improvement in healthy inventory, as this brand achieved, means meaningfully more of the inventory on the floor is working — selling at full price rather than waiting to be discounted.
Can Increff's inventory management system scale across 600+ stores without losing granularity?
Yes — and this case study is the evidence. The IST module analyzed demand, identified transfer opportunities, and generated recommendations across 600+ stores at the SKU level. The system is designed to run the analysis at scale without the granularity degrading into category-level approximations. It can be run multiple times within a season, for select merchandise or the entire range, based on whatever cadence makes sense for the brand's planning cycle. The manual effort involved is minimal — the inventory optimization engine does the analytical work.
Why Increff for Fashion Retail Inventory Optimization in Europe?
European fashion retail operates on tight seasonal windows, where the cost of misallocated inventory compounds quickly. Increff's Merchandising Software is built for that environment:
- SKU-level inventory analysis across 600+ stores — granular enough to catch size-level demand imbalances, not just category trends
- Automated IST recommendations that run at any frequency, for any subset of merchandise, without manual planning overhead
- Business intelligence dashboard for real-time stock health visibility — giving merchandising teams the data to act in-season, not post-season
- Size set completion that systematically recovers sales lost to missing sizes — a consistently undervalued revenue opportunity in fashion
- Inventory optimization at scale — proven across a 600+ store European menswear network with measurable results
- NOOS identification built into the analysis — future buying decisions informed by the same system managing current inventory
Ready to Stop Leaving Revenue on the Markdown Table?
If your stores are ending each season with surplus inventory that should have been somewhere else — the fix is in-season redistribution, not post-season discounting.
Book a demo with Increff today