Business intelligence blog

As online shopping grows in popularity and in sales volume, so too do the companies trying to carve for themselves a slice of the market. One company that has succeeded in attracting numerous customers in Australia with its targeted approach of selling heavily discounted designer brands is Ozsale.

Ozsale is a member-based online shopping club. Anyone can sign up and become a member. Louise Meade, now Head of Buying, says “Each day, members receive a personal invitation to the most exclusive sales events for men, women, kids, home, beauty, wine and more – at up to 80% off retail. Sales start every day, seven days a week and typically run for 2 to 3 days. 60% of stock is usually sold in the first 48 hours so getting in early is strongly advised!”

Ozsale has dedicated buyers in Australia, Europe, Asia and USA who spend their days (and sometimes nights!) searching the world for the best products and negotiating deals direct with suppliers to offer exclusively to members. Ozsale has over 8.75 million members and has expanded into a number of locations in Asia Pacific.

The Challenges of Expansion

As the company grew and expanded, its ability to track sales by product line and obtain reports about the performance of the business became a significant challenge. Ozsale's main warehouses in Sydney, Los Angeles and the UK receive 20,000 garments per day, and then distribute those garments to various locations across Australia and Asia Pacific. They needed a tool that would work with their ERP Microsoft Dynamics NAV and allow them to:

1. Obtain Sales History easily and quickly about particular sales, brands and product line.
2. Monitor warehouse operations and provide reports back to suppliers about the performance   of their brands and products
3. Budgeting and forecasting so managers can quickly assess where things are at with the   business and what sort of decisions need to be taken about its future.

“Prior to having Phocas, getting the history of a previous sale/brand was time consuming and difficult. Instead of getting all history for one brand instantly like we do now, it was a slow process of collating data, sale by sale, month by month and inputting it into excel”, recalls Meade.

“We tried developing our own in house reports through excel and other programs. The problem with these was the number of reports required was never ending and the ability to get data needed was too slow.”

Saving Time and Reducing Complexity

To address their reporting and data analysis needs, Ozsale turned to Phocas BI for a solution. Since implementing Phocas, Meade states, “Phocas is very easy and intuitive to use. Its ability to analyse large amounts of data in a few simple clicks of the mouse is outstanding. Learning how to use Phocas was quick and simple. A quick 10 minute demonstration is all it takes to get a new user up and running. I would be lost without it”.

“The first thing I do every morning is check my sales results from the previous day. In a fast paced environment this is crucial as it gives me and the rest of the team time to react. With the tools Phocas gives me, I can use data to build my budgets and forecasts. It gives me the ability to quickly lookup and compare suppliers and sales on a month by month basis. This means I can quickly drill down on a supplier and their sales to build future budgets and forecasts”.

In this blog, we've seen how Phocas has benefitted Ozsale. Phocas has just been rated as Best in 'Business Benefits' by the industry analyst, Gartner. For more information, click the button below: