Marketmax implemented by Luxottica Retail

-- Merchandise intelligence from Marketmax provides Luxottica Retail with new assortment and planning solution --

CHICAGO (May 24, 2005) – SAS, the leader in business intelligence, announced today that Luxottica Retail is using Marketmax, a division of SAS, to provide solutions for inventory assortment, financial planning and performance analysis. Luxottica Retail operates well-known retail brands such as LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut and is the world’s leading optical retailer with approximately 5,500 stores around the globe. Luxottica is using SAS in its divisions in the United States, Canada, Australia, Asia and Europe.

“With Marketmax, we are able to provide our customers with the optimal mix of products to meet their needs,” said Gar Gunter, chief information officer at Luxottica Retail. “Marketmax helps us identify product trends quickly and perform early assessments on how brands are selling in different markets. With this information we can react quickly to make adjustments in assortments faster and manage inventory more efficiently.”

Marketmax® Assortment Planning helps determine which products deliver the best return on investment. Weak performers are replaced with new products. With performance data built into the system, planning is grounded in real-world, tested data, and decisions are truly a function of consumer demand. Planning software from Marketmax helps optimize space within stores to maximize revenue per square foot.

Marketmax Micromarketing allows a company to automatically group or cluster stores with similar attributes to make the planning process more efficient and better tuned to varying regions, seasons, buying trends, store sizes and customer demographics.

With Marketmax Financial Planning, companies are also able to set business goals based on stores’ past, present and anticipated future demand.

“In addition to reducing excess inventory, Marketmax helps retailers like Luxottica Retail eliminate out-of-stock situations while streamlining financial planning and assortment planning,” said Lori Schafer, president of Marketmax, a division of SAS. “Strategic business plans can be driven down into financial and assortment planning more seamlessly to reduce costs and maximize revenue.”