Baltimore Ravens

Cegid Helps The Baltimore Ravens Tackle NFL Gameday in 70,000 Seat Venue

The Baltimore Ravens, a professional NFL football team with two Super Bowl championships (2000 and 2012), plays its home games at the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland. With a capacity to seat 71,000 people, the retail operations group is an important business unit for the Ravens. With 16 stores located inside the stadium, thousands of fans purchase the latest in sports apparel and memorabilia to support their team.

At peak hours during football games, such as the half-time period, the retail stores get an influx of customers, and it’s common for lines to form outside the doors. The wait time at this point has to be short, because customers want to shop, complete a purchase, and return to the game as quickly as possible.

In order to meet consumer demands, Chris Inouye, Director of Retail for the Baltimore Ravens knew they needed a merchandising solution that streamlined the customer experience and reduced the wait time. “This is not a retail operation with daily sales year round. We need to anticipate our sales based on 10 pre-scheduled home games planned at the beginning of the year. In order to maximize sales during the peak periods, we need to forecast and ensure that we have inventory in stock, replenish orders accurately, and have actionable reporting,” says Inouye.

For the Baltimore Ravens, best sellers are crucial to plan in advance. “In sports, it is common for items to become best sellers overnight, so in addition to planning and allocating inventory in advance, we needed a merchandising solution that allows us to adjust inventory in real-time, fulfill and take backorders as needed”, says Inouye.

After evaluating different options, the Baltimore Ravens selected Yourcegid Retail WinRetail for its 16 stores and warehouse. Inouye says “We are happy to have partnered with Cegid. We selected WinRetail because of the depth in functionality, reliability, deep reporting, and their experience working with specialty retailers and other sporting teams.”

Since implementing WinRetail, the Baltimore Ravens were able to optimize their inventory and now benefit from improved insight, reduced out-of-stock items, increased sell-through percentages, and increased productivity.

“Overall the Cegid retail software solution is very user friendly. Once the software was configured to our needs, it became a real asset for my account. I was able to reduce my labor costs and increase profits by using the software’s auto replenishment functionality. This software package has a lot to offer and each year we learn more about it. The additional things we learn, we put to use and our efficiency increases each year as we grow with the software,” concludes Inouye.