In merchandise planning, defining a robust product hierarchy is only half the battle. The real depth and value come from leveraging the right product attributes. Attributes such as "Color Family," "Launch Season," and "Pattern Group" provide powerful insights that drive effective assortment planning, inventory management, and analytics. This blog post outlines how to strategically use these attributes to enhance your merchandise planning process, backed by a practical Excel spreadsheet that you can use as a template.
Why Product Attributes Matter
Product attributes provide context and specificity that help merchandise planners go beyond simple categorizations. While a well-structured product hierarchy (learn more here) organizes products into logical groups, attributes offer the nuances needed to understand customer preferences, predict trends, and optimize stock levels. They help planners answer crucial questions like:
- Which colors or patterns are trending?
- What is the sell-through rate of core versus seasonal items?
- How does product performance vary by launch season or vendor?
By focusing on attributes that matter most to your business, you can make more informed decisions that directly impact your bottom line.
Key Product Attributes to Consider
Here are some of the most valuable product attributes that you should consider integrating into your merchandise planning process:
1. Launch Month, Launch Season, and Launch Year
For example, by analyzing the "Launch Season" (e.g., Fall, Spring) attribute, you can identify which seasons historically drive the most sales for particular categories and adjust future launches accordingly. Similarly, by leveraging a combination of “Launch Season” and “Launch Year,” you can analyze the financial performance of products launched at the same time and gain insights into sell-through and margins.
You can also use these attributes to build a report on your “Inventory Freshness,” highlighting the age of your inventory based on when products launch. This helps answer critical questions, such as the percentage of inventory that is aging or overstocked, allowing you to manage markdowns and replenishments more effectively.
2. Seasonality
The "Seasonality" attribute differentiates between "Core" and "Seasonal" products. This distinction is vital for inventory management and financial planning. Core products, which have consistent demand year-round, can benefit from different buying and replenishment strategies compared to seasonal items, which may need a more agile approach to avoid markdowns.
By analyzing seasonality, you can determine the optimal stock levels for each category, plan markdowns effectively, and ensure high sell-through rates without excessive inventory.
3. Color Family and Pattern Group
These attributes fall under Reporting & Analytics and provide aggregated views of product trends. Rather than analyzing each color or pattern individually, you can group similar items to understand broader trends. For example, "Color Family" can group all shades of “Blue” or “Red” products, providing a clearer understanding of performance trends compared to the more granular “Color” attribute used by design teams. While the “Color” attribute might be what customers see on your website, reporting on “Color Family” will provide more strategic insights.
Similarly, a "Pattern Group" attribute can categorize items into "Stripes," "Solids," "Florals," etc. If you notice that "Stripes" are trending upward while "Solids" are declining, you can adjust future assortments to focus more on the popular patterns. Establishing a naming convention like “Attribute Group” (e.g., "Color Group," "Pattern Group") can help create more reportable and actionable attributes from creative, design-led names.
4. Vendor and Country of Origin
Understanding where your products come from, both in terms of the vendor and country of origin, can provide insights into lead times, costs, and quality. This information can guide sourcing decisions and help manage supply chain risks.
For instance, if you find that products sourced from a particular vendor consistently underperform or have longer lead times, you might decide to diversify your supplier base.
5. Collection
The "Collection" attribute is useful for identifying the specific marketing campaigns or capsule collections a product was launched in. Unlike other attributes, the "Collection" does not change over time, making it ideal for conducting performance analysis on products tied to specific collections. For example, you can analyze the success of a "Spring Nautical" collection to determine its overall contribution to sales, margins, and brand growth, and use this data to plan future collections.
6. Product Status
"Product Status" is another useful attribute, and unlike the other attributes we have covered so far, it is a dynamic attribute that will change over the lifetime of the product. Typical values for "Product Status" might include "New," "Continuing," "Discontinued," "Markdown," and "Offline" to reflect the different stages a product might be in.
It’s important to have a clear strategy around when to use each status. For example:
- New: Used for the first 13 weeks of the product.
- Continuing: When you decide to buy more into that product.
- Discontinued: When you stop buying more of that product but continue selling it at full price.
- Markdown: When you have taken the first markdown.
- Offline: For products that are no longer being sold.
Leveraging "Product Status" effectively will allow you to easily filter a group of products and set the appropriate reporting and planning strategy for that subset of products.
How to Establish a Strong Process for Product Attributing
Establishing insightful product attributes requires a well-defined process and alignment across the entire merchandising function. Without a structured approach, the attribute list can quickly become overwhelming, losing its significance and utility. Here are some practical steps to enable you to manage product attributes effectively.
- Establish Clear Goals for Attributes: Start by defining the purpose of each attribute. Breaking attributes into distinct categories—such as hierarchy attributes, reporting and analytics attributes, and design or descriptive attributes—can help clarify their roles. Hierarchy attributes help structure your product categories, reporting attributes support data analysis, and descriptive attributes provide additional context for design or marketing strategy. By categorizing attributes, you create a framework that aligns with your business objectives.
- Assign Clear Ownership for Each Attribute Category: For each attribute category, designate a specific owner responsible for decision-making. This person or team should have a deep understanding of the goals of their assigned attribute category. With clear categories and goals in place, it becomes obvious who should make decisions regarding those attributes. This step helps avoid conflicting opinions and ensures accountability.
- Document Use Cases and Guidelines for Each Attribute: After identifying the owner and defining the purpose of each attribute, document its specific use case and the rules governing its application. For example, if you include a "Product Status" attribute, provide clear guidelines on when a product moves from one status (e.g., "New") to another (e.g., "Continuing"). The more specific and detailed you are at this stage, the easier it will be to maintain and use these attributes over time.
- Adopt a "Less is More" Philosophy: While it may be tempting to add numerous attributes to analyze product data from every possible angle, this can lead to complexity and inefficiency. Remember, each attribute needs maintenance and analysis, which requires time and resources. If you are unsure about the value of an attribute, consider dropping it. As a general rule, we recommend keeping reporting and analytics attributes to a maximum of 10 to avoid overwhelming your team.
- Conduct a Product Attribution Exercise: Implementing attributes across thousands of products can be a daunting task. Make this a collaborative effort by involving the owners of each attribute category. This approach helps ensure that attributes are applied correctly but also allows the owners to test the usability and relevance of their assigned attributes in a practical context.
- Integrate Attributes into Regular Reporting Processes: Utilize the defined attributes in your weekly, monthly, and quarterly reporting processes. If you notice that certain attributes are not being used or do not provide value, consider removing them. Be sure to document why they were dropped to avoid confusion later and to refine your attribute strategy continuously.
- Recognize That Attributes Are Dynamic: Product attributes should evolve along with your business needs and goals. Regularly revisit your attribute strategy—whether quarterly, semi-annually, or annually—to ensure it aligns with your current business context and provides the insights you need. This adaptive approach helps you stay ahead and ensures that your attribute framework remains relevant and valuable.
In summary, focus on having clear ownership, start small, thoroughly document decisions, and continuously refine your process as you learn more. Building the right attributing culture is more crucial than getting all attributes perfect from the start.
Download Your Free Product Attributes Template
To help you implement these best practices, we’ve created an Excel spreadsheet that outlines the essential product attributes discussed in this post. This spreadsheet includes a practical example of how to use these attributes for assortment planning, merchandise planning, and analytics.
Download the Product Attributes Template to get started on enhancing your merchandise planning process with actionable insights.
Maximize Planning with Smart Product Attributes
By thoughtfully setting up and leveraging product attributes, you can drive more effective merchandise planning and decision-making. Whether it’s through better understanding seasonality, optimizing inventory levels, or analyzing trends in color and pattern preferences, these attributes are essential tools for any planner. Start using the provided template today and see the difference it makes in your planning processes.
