December 18th, 2023

Mint Velvet Boosts Creativity and Clarity with Centric Software Solutions

Womenswear brand implements Centric PLM and Visual Boards to save time, build agility and improve collaboration

CAMPBELL, Calif., December 19, 2023 – Centric Software® is pleased to announce that UK womenswear brand Mint Velvet has selected Centric solutions to drive go-to-market innovation and value creation for consumer goods retailers, brands and manufacturers. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, outdoor, luxury, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Mint Velvet began when founders Liz Houghton and Lisa Agar-Rea set out to create an unfailingly chic collection of contemporary, great quality staples and elevated fits that they felt were missing from their wardrobes. Mint Velvet’s core concept, ‘Relaxed Glamour’, was born. Mint Velvet clothes are sold in almost 130 outlets in the UK and Ireland, and direct to consumer through their e-commerce site.

Mint Velvet has grown rapidly, expanding collections from about 60 to over 1000 SKUS per season. Managing product concept, range planning and buying has become ever more complex.

“We built the brand from scratch, and our spreadsheet-based systems were no longer fit for purpose,” explains Harri Rands, Buying Director at Mint Velvet. “Things change so quickly that we couldn’t trust the information in front of us, and we knew we had to look for a solution to bring everything together and establish a single source of truth.”

Mint Velvet selected Centric PLM™ and Visual Assortment Boards for Planning. Centric Visual Boards for Planning merges information from multiple business systems into a highly visual format, allowing users to plan collections and SKUs visually pivoting by channel, delivery date, color and more.

“We started with PLM because product is the core of the business, and it was important to get the foundation right so that we could streamline collaboration and interconnectivity across departments,” says Rands. “We loved the vision of not just a PLM system, but a full package for the end-to-end process of bringing a product to market. Centric’s approach was highly collaborative and we valued their interest in us as a business and how we work, in order to get the product right.”

Mint Velvet’s teams are particularly excited about the addition of Visual Assortment Boards for a holistic view of all product from concept to store, to empower buyers, merchandisers, designers, marketing and retail teams to view assortments strategically in a visual pivot table fashion. This will drive better decision-making for optimal performance and a coherent brand experience across all areas of the business.

“The minute I saw Visual Boards, I thought, wow, this is game-changing,” says Rands. “It truly brings the creative and data sides together and eliminates so many time-consuming manual processes. It will enable us to think more creatively, build themes from concept to store, and transform the buying process. It will give us time and clarity to focus on what really matters, which is the product.”

“We are delighted to welcome Mint Velvet on board,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “Mint Velvet is a strong brand with a determined vision to streamline their processes and grow, and we look forward to deploying Centric solutions and continuing to collaborate with them for the long-term.”

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Mint Velvet (www.mintvelvet.com)

Mint Velvet began when founders Liz Houghton and Lisa Agar-Rea set out to create an unfailingly chic collection of contemporary, great quality staples and elevated fits that they felt were missing from their wardrobes. Feeling frustrated that they couldn’t find anything they wanted to wear, or the great customer service they craved, they started fusing relaxed comfort with glamourous yet wearable fashion trends. Relaxed Glamour was born.

On and off duty, Mint Velvet’s refined, effortless attitude delivers British-based designs inspired by busy women with a modern approach to getting dressed. Mint Velvet’s collections are overflowing with versatility that you can lean on day in, day out. Relaxed Glamour is MV’s fail-safe style formula, and it runs throughout everything they do, from the fabrics they cut to how they put together on-point outfitting options. Taking the time to scrutinise every shape, silhouette, fabric and detail to ensure they always deliver flattering, great quality, understated luxury, whether elevated basics-with-a-twist or standout eveningwear.

After a whirlwind of success in the first couple of years, today Mint Velvet has stores nationwide, a thriving website and partnerships with premium department stores. As Mint Velvet enter the next exciting phase of their journey, they’re on the lookout for exceptional people to join them and help continue the legacy of their ambitious brand growth, with the same energy and passion they’ve had since the beginning. Mint Velvet operates in a professional but non-corporate way and believe that a strong team is greater than a team of strong people (and everyone takes their turn to pitch in and make the tea!).

Centric Software® (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-replenishment platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products.

Centric PLM™, the leading PLM solution for fashion, outdoor, footwear and private label, optimizes product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture, realizing up to 50% improvement in productivity and a 60% decrease in time to market.
Centric Planning™ is an innovative, cloud-native, AI solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance, including SKU optimization, resulting in an up to 110% increase in margins.
Centric Pricing & Inventory™ leverages AI to drive margins and boost revenues by up to 18% via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion.
Centric Market Intelligence™ is an AI-driven platform giving insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitively and get closer to the consumer, with an up to 12% increase in average initial price point.
Centric Visual Boards™ pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers, dramatically decreasing assortment development cycle time.

Centric Software’s market-driven, best-of-breed solutions have the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, appearing regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.