Family-owned furniture retailer uses RELEX forecasting and replenishment solutions to balance product availability with inventory optimization

Optimizing Complex Furniture Operations for Sustainable Growth

Managing a dynamic product assortment with high-value, slow-moving items alongside fast-moving products requires sophisticated supply chain planning. With 20% of product ranges changing annually and the challenge of balancing availability against inventory costs, furniture retailers face constant pressure to optimize operations while maintaining customer satisfaction. For porta, one of Germany’s largest family-owned furniture retailers, transforming their supply chain planning was essential to sustain growth across their omnichannel operations.

Founded as a family business in 1965, the porta Group operates 142 stores across Germany through their porta furniture stores and furniture BOSS brands, alongside a growing e-commerce presence. As the company serves customers across multiple channels, their goal is to maintain their position as a leading furniture destination.

Beginning in 2021, porta implemented RELEX forecasting and replenishment solutions, working alongside RELEX partner Wysupp. The collaboration focused on addressing the unique challenges of furniture retail, where high-value slow-moving items require careful inventory management while fast-moving products demand high availability to capture sales opportunities.

Addressing Complex Planning Challenges

To maintain market leadership as a leading German furniture retailer, porta needed to overcome significant supply chain planning obstacles. The company faced frequent stockouts that resulted in lost sales, particularly challenging given their mix of high-value furniture and faster-moving accessories. Their existing processes lacked sufficient automation and relied heavily on manual analysis, making it difficult to respond quickly to changing demand patterns. Without proper forecast accuracy or the ability to work with service levels, porta struggled with common stockouts while simultaneously carrying high stock levels in other areas.

Different processes across product categories and brands, lack of centralized supply chain planning, and limited end-to-end visibility further compounded complexity. These challenges also created resourcing issues and long reaction times, particularly problematic when responding to spontaneous marketing activities or seasonal demand changes.

To address these operational inefficiencies, porta implemented RELEX forecasting and replenishment capabilities, focusing on standardizing processes across the organization. Key functionalities included advanced machine learning forecasting for fast-movers, time series forecasting for slow-movers, automated replenishment, and channel forecasting to support their online operations.

Clear objectives were also laid out, to measure success of the transformation:

  • Increase automation levels
  • Improve availability while maintaining or reducing stock
  • Strengthen supply chain visibility and flexibility across their omnichannel operations

The implementation started in July 2021 with a staged rollout approach, involving close collaboration between porta’s teams, RELEX, and Wysupp to ensure the solution addressed porta’s specific challenges. This included developing processes to handle both high-value slow-moving furniture and faster-moving accessories, while establishing proper safety stock processes and service level management. It was important to porta that RELEX could handle all brands and categories uniformly, using its universal forecasting process.

Delivering Measurable Business Impact

Working with RELEX transformed how porta managed their inventory across their product range. Comparing their fast-moving assortment performance over the past year (ending April 2025) against the same period three years earlier, the results were striking. Product availability jumped to over 96% while sales grew by nearly 9%. Most impressive was porta’s ability to reduce their inventory investment by almost 10% while selling more products, achieving the retail goal of higher sales with lower stock levels.

The new RELEX system began handling the heavy lifting of inventory planning, automatically generating tens of thousands of order proposals each week with 70% requiring no manual adjustments. This automation freed porta’s planning team from routine tasks to focus on strategic decisions and exception handling, improving both accuracy and responsiveness across their operations.

Even porta’s slower-moving items benefited from the transformation. Availability increased by nearly six percentage points to over 93%, with sales growing accordingly. While these products required slightly higher stock levels due to improved availability, the sales gains more than justified the investment.

The benefits rippled throughout porta’s organization beyond just inventory management. The purchasing team now uses the system’s insights to monitor supplier delivery reliability, creating better accountability across their supplier network and strengthening these crucial business relationships.

“With our constantly evolving furniture assortment, we needed a solution that could keep pace with our dynamic business,” said Stephan Hermes, Managing Director Purchasing at porta. “RELEX has helped us better manage our inventory while maintaining high product availability for our customers.”

The transformation positioned porta for continued growth in the competitive furniture market. By mastering the balance between sales growth and inventory efficiency, the company built a more resilient operation ready to adapt to changing market conditions. As porta continues evolving their product range and expanding their online presence, this foundation supports their ambitious growth plans while maintaining their commitment to customer satisfaction.