Adapting to Change for Supply Chain Resilience 

In the fast-paced world of beauty retail, staying ahead of viral social media trends and evolving consumer preferences requires consistent product availability online and in physical stores. However, supply chain disruptions can be rife, leading to stockouts and lost sales that damage brand loyalty and customer trust. To meet rising expectations and manage growing supply chain complexity, leading Nordic beauty chain, KICKS must transform their operations for greater agility and transparency.  

Founded in 1991, KICKS operates 230 stores across Sweden, Norway, and Finland, alongside a strong e-commerce presence. Offering a comprehensive range of makeup, fragrances, skincare, and haircare products, their mission is to become the premier beauty destination in the Nordics.  

In 2019, KICKS implemented forecasting, replenishment, and supply chain optimization with RELEX to improve inventory accuracy and promotional planning. In 2021, the scope expanded to include space and assortment planning. KICKS acquired Skincity, a Scandinavian skincare company, integrating with the brand and underwent a major supply chain transformation. This included warehouse consolidation and the opening of a new warehouse to serve their e-commerce channels, all while maintaining their growth momentum. Subsequently, KICKS was acquired by the Matas Group in 2023.  

Uncovering Root Causes to Enhance Visibility and Collaboration  

To become the leading beauty chain in the Nordics, KICKS needed a deeper understanding of their supply chain challenges. The supply chain planning team identified some key areas: frequent stockouts leading to lost sales, manual and time-consuming analyses, and limited visibility into the root causes of availability issues. To add complexity, e-commerce and physical stores shared stock codes, making it difficult to isolate and diagnose issues related to online sales. These challenges affected the internal alignment amongst the teams on stockout problems. 

To address these issues, KICKS made a strategic move to implement RELEX Diagnostics to streamline operations, reduce manual work, and foster cross-functional collaboration. The tool is designed to improve visibility into inventory and supply chain performance. It automates the analysis of order proposals and inventory data to identify root causes of stockouts and provides actionable insights to minimize lost sales.  

To ensure success, KICKS set out clear objectives for the project to: 

  • Gain deeper visibility into lost sales causes to improve decision-making 
  • Eliminate manual analysis and reliance on qualified guesses 
  • Strengthen supplier accountability and collaboration using data insights  
  • Improve cross-functional teamwork and shared responsibility for resolving availability issues.  

Implementation was a quick process, with RELEX Diagnostics set up in Fall 2024 and operational within two weeks. Development continued through to the end of 2024 to tailor the solution to KICKS’ specific use cases. During this phase, the supply chain team addresses challenges such as incomplete transaction data and the need to refine key performance metrics, including late and missing deliveries. KICKS adopted RELEX’s best practices for classifying reason codes and distributed responsibilities across supply chain planning, excellence, and other internal teams. This collaborative approach bridged gaps between stores, warehouses, and central operations, promoting a unified effort to improve availability and customer satisfaction. 

Turning Actionable Insights into Business Results  

By using RELEX Diagnostics, KICKS was provided with clear, actionable insights into the causes of lost sales, enabling the team to take targeted corrective actions. One of the most significant discoveries was that under-forecasting was the primary contributor to stockouts which prompted immediate response. While suppliers remained an important factor, their impact was less than initially assumed. Additional issues, such as unexecuted deliveries at stores and distribution centers (DCs), also emerged as key contributors. 

During the 2024 Christmas holiday season, RELEX Diagnostics proved invaluable for the team. It highlighted major drivers of lost sales, which included DC scarcity, system under-forecasting, and late or missing deliveries. On review, they saw that a single supplier was responsible for 39% of lost sales. With this data, KICKS was able to review and amend their processes with the supplier, to improve the availability of products or brands that were affected during peak periods. This ability to quantify performance has strengthened supplier collaboration and accountability.  

To address delivery delays, KICKS introduced a new follow-up process for the Operations team, requiring deliveries to be completed within 24 hours. The impact resulting in a significant improvement with late deliveries dropping from 5.2% in October 2024 to 3.4% in March 2025. As a result, they have reduced the lost sales value linked to late deliveries by 34%. 

“RELEX Diagnostics has given us clear steps on how to improve our supply chain processes,” said Linda Borg, Supply Chain Super User, KICKS. “While some fear that data-driven AI tools might replace roles, we see it as an opportunity to add more value to the company and empower our supply chain planners.” Looking forward, KICKS sees further opportunities to use RELEX Diagnostics and will implement additional functionality to reduce excess stock. KICKS also aims to review their processes to ensure they have all key transactional data needed and improve forecast accuracy for seasonal and campaign planning.  

“By prioritizing RELEX Diagnostics, we have already taken swift action on under-forecasting and are working exception-based to tackle the products with the highest impact on lost sales each week,” said Sara Vennerström, Team Manager, Supply Chain Planning, KICKS. “As we continue to address missing deliveries and refine our processes, we’re excited to see how RELEX Diagnostics will guide our next steps.” 

Through the work with RELEX, KICKS has transformed to become more resilient, and data-driven. RELEX Diagnostics continues to play a vital role in reducing lost sales, improving supplier relations and fostering collaboration as the company advances on its journey to leading the Nordic beauty market.