Recommend cloud based forecasting for an organisation for Macy’s.

Understanding Business
12th Edition
ISBN:9781259929434
Author:William Nickels
Publisher:William Nickels
Chapter1: Taking Risks And Making Profits Within The Dynamic Business Environment
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Enhancing Macy’s e-commerce Success with Trend Forecasting
Despite the bleak retail environment that has led to the closure of many iconic American 
department stores this year, Macy’s has managed to stay afloat by adjusting their strategy to suit 
the needs of our rapidly changing world. This means focusing on e-commerce, at which Macy’s has 
proven to be very successful. In fact, the retailer reported a 53% increase in digital sales during the 
most recent quarter, attesting to Macy’s ability to stay relevant during a time when the existence 
of physical retail stores is being called into question.

To build on their recent online success, Macy’s can infuse trend forecasting to their e-commerce 
strategy to ensure that the retailer is in tune with changing consumer tastes, and plan their 
collections accordingly. With insights into the kinds of images with which consumers interact on 
social media, Macy’s can get a clue into how trends will behave ahead of the market. With this 
data, it is possible to predict up to one year in advance changes in demand and visibility for any 
given trend, along with their geography and customer segmentation, making it possible to avoid 
overstock by accurately predicting consumer demand.
Targeting a younger audience: Capsule collections
Macy’s is perhaps best known for its women’s ready to wear selection, with women aged 16-34 as 
the retailer’s target consumer base. However, women’s apparel represents just under a quarter of 
Macy’s revenue, with only 35% of Macy’s apparel shoppers under the age of 40. Given its role as a 
major historic department store, Macy’s should take advantage of its high level of brand 
awareness to target a younger audience, as millennials account for half of the ready to wear 
market. Targeting millennials and Gen Z is a logical next step for Macy’s, especially considering the 
retailer’s renewed focus on digital growth, since younger generations tend to be more keen to 
shop online compared to older generations. Thus, to remain a relevant player in the retail 
landscape, Macy’s should leverage their high level of brand awareness and focus on widening their 
consumer base by capturing the attention of younger generations.
To achieve this goal and successfully attract a younger audience, Macy’s should leverage their inhouse brands to create on-trend capsule collections. This strategy has proven to be highly 
successful in the past: earlier this year, Macy’s partnered with influencer Danielle Bernstein for a 
capsule collection that generated over $2.5 million in sales in 24 hours. This collection included 
fashion-forward pieces like crop tops and ruched-sleeved blazers, proving that Macy’s can in fact 
capture the attention of the fashion-conscious young consumer through offering well curated, ontrend capsule collections.
Avoid overstock and fashion misses with trend forecasting
In addition to ensuring the right styles are covered in Macy’s product assortment, having the 
correct quantities is equally important to avoid overstock. Macy’s can utilize their private labels by 
creating unique capsule collections that cover all of the must-have trends in any given season. For 
Macy’s private brands, having a fashion miss in key categories like sportswear or dresses 
contributes to rising inventory levels. Therefore, creating a fashionable, well curated loungewear 
collection with the assistance of Heuritech’s trend forecasting technology could be a successful 
strategy to strengthen Macy’s ready to wear assortment mix.
Since comfortable yet on-trend clothing has become the latest must-have wardrobe staple in the 
past few months, having a hit loungewear collection could make all the difference in reestablishing Macy’s as a major player in the fashion industry. Trend forecasting can provide Macy’s 
with key insights in terms of what colors, styles, patterns, and quantities to include in such a 
collection. For instance, tie & dye is a key pattern trend for Spring 2021 in North America, with a 
predicted increase in visibility on social media of 64% compared to 2020. Moreover, the most 
represented category for this pattern is tops, and it is popular across all 3 of our consumer 
segments – edgy, trendy, and fashion forward. With this in mind, tie & dye would be a must have 
fabric for a loungewear capsule collection, as it appeals to all consumer segments and is trendy 
particularly for tops.
Trend forecasting could be the key to help Macy’s thrive in a rapidly changing, highly competitive 
retail environment by reducing overstock, attracting a younger target audience through on-trend 
capsule collections, and avoiding any fashion misses. Heuritech can help Macy’s by ensuring all of 
the bases are covered for must-have trends up to one year in advance, from shapes, colors, to 
fabric textures, to secure Macy’s reputation as both a historic yet fashion forward iconic American 
department store.


Recommend cloud based forecasting for an organisation for Macy’s.



Expert Solution
Step 1

Cloud-based   forecasting model, tools, and software are considered for forecasting when they are utilized to improve
on demand accuracy and give customer-defined forecasting. Because cloud-based forecasting makes the storing and management of data easy for organizations, many businesses are employing it to address the supply chain issues.

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