How RetailNorthstar implementations work.
A RetailNorthstar implementation is the configuration of the platform to your planning structure — merchandise hierarchy, period calendar, channels, and size logic — run by the team that builds the product. Standard onboarding is included in the subscription, the standard implementation involves no third-party integrator, and most brands are live in weeks.
Connected planning is usually sold as a licence plus a separately contracted implementation programme, scoped and delivered by an implementation or systems-integration partner. RetailNorthstar was built to remove that structure, not to staff it: the people who built the planning objects are the people who help you configure them.
The team that builds the product runs the implementation.
In the standard implementation there is no third-party integrator and no separately scoped implementation programme. Discovery, configuration, data connection, and go-live are one continuous engagement, run by one team — the same people who design and ship RetailNorthstar, working directly with your planners.
That is a structural difference, not a service tier. When the implementer is the product team, nothing about your workflow has to be translated between organizations — the people configuring your OTB structure are the people who decided how OTB works in the product.
Licence and implementation are contracted separately — the programme is scoped, staffed, and delivered by a partner organization.
Product knowledge sits with the vendor, configuration knowledge sits with the partner, and your workflow depends on both.
After go-live, a change request travels back across that boundary: partner scoping first, product vendor second.
Standard onboarding is included in the subscription — no separate implementation programme, no implementation partner requirement.
Discovery, configuration, and go-live are run with the team that designs and ships the product.
After go-live, the team that configured your workflow is the team you raise changes with.
Five steps, one team.
The sequence below is the standard implementation. It is deliberately unexotic — the work is mapping your existing planning structure into a connected data model, not inventing a new one, and each step is run with the team that will still be there after go-live.
We start from how you already plan: your merchandise hierarchy, your period calendar and season structure, your channels, and how sizing works in your categories. The goal of discovery is not to redesign your planning — it is to describe it precisely enough to configure against.
Line plan, OTB, assortment, buy plan, sizing, PO, and WIP structures are configured to the workflow you described — directly in the UI, by your planning team working with ours. No custom development phase, no IT lead.
RetailNorthstar imports your historical sales data, current inventory positions, and existing plan structures during onboarding. Your planning history migrates forward into the connected data model — you don’t start from scratch.
Go-live runs against a parallel validation period: the live plan runs alongside the files it replaces until the numbers reconcile and the team trusts them. Most brands are live in weeks, with go-live run by the same people who configured the workflow.
Post-go-live changes are handled by the team that configured the workflow. Adding stages later — buying execution, WIP tracking, allocation — extends the same configuration without requiring a full re-implementation.
The planning objects, shaped to your structure.
Configuration means mapping RetailNorthstar's planning objects to the structures your team already plans in. During onboarding, the platform maps your existing spreadsheet structures to the RetailNorthstar data model, so the frameworks stay familiar while the objects become connected.
Category structure, option counts, and seasonal targets — the product direction the season is built from.
Financial guardrails by department, channel, and week, configured to your OTB structure and receipt flow.
Attribute-level product selection reconciled against OTB targets, with channel segmentation for DTC and wholesale.
Unit depth by style-color-size and vendor and delivery-window allocation, generated from the confirmed assortment.
Size curves calculated from your historical sell-through, applied at buy planning and replenishment.
PO generation from the confirmed buy plan, with vendor terms, lead times, and delivery confirmation.
Factory milestones, in-transit visibility, and receipt confirmation between buy placement and arrival.
Sell-through and margin tracking in season, and hindsight views that feed the next cycle’s OTB and assortment.
What changes after go-live — and who changes it.
Planning software is judged in season, not at go-live. The assortment framework that made sense in discovery meets a real season, a channel gets added, a category splits, a size curve turns out to be wrong for one department — and the configuration has to move.
When the implementer is a partner organization, that change request has boundaries to cross: the team that feels the problem describes it to the partner that configured the workflow, who scopes it against the vendor that builds the product. Each boundary adds translation, and translation is where planning intent gets lost.
The standard RetailNorthstar implementation involves no third-party integrator, so there is no partner boundary in the change path. Configuration changes are made in the platform by the team already working in it, and requests that need product work land directly with the people who ship the product.
In production at a national apparel brand since 2022.
line plan, assortment, buy plan, sizing, PO, WIP and analytics — in daily use, on live seasons, by the team that owns the plan. Renewed every year since. This is a paid production deployment, not a pilot and not a proof of concept.
We do not publish the brand or their numbers. Whether a customer is named is their call, not ours, and their planning data is theirs. What changes when planning is connected →
Implementation questions
Who runs a RetailNorthstar implementation?
The team that builds the product. Discovery, configuration, and go-live are run by the same people who design and ship RetailNorthstar, working directly with your planning team. There is no separate implementation project and no implementation partner requirement.
Do we need a third-party integrator or implementation consultant?
No. RetailNorthstar is designed for self-serve onboarding: planning teams configure the platform directly in the UI, with the product team alongside, and the standard implementation involves no third-party integrator. Standard onboarding — importing your historical data, mapping your planning structure, and configuring the workflow — is included in the subscription.
How long does a RetailNorthstar implementation take?
Most brands are live in weeks. Onboarding starts from the structures you already plan in — your merchandise hierarchy, period calendar, and size curves — and most brands go live on OTB, assortment, and buy planning first, then extend into buying execution, WIP tracking, and allocation without requiring a full re-implementation.
What happens when we need changes in season?
You raise them with the team that configured your workflow — which is the team that builds the product. Configuration changes are made directly in the platform, and requests that need product work land with the people who ship the product rather than crossing a partner boundary.
See the implementation before you commit to it.
Book a demo and walk through discovery, configuration, and go-live with the team that would run yours.
Connected merchandise planning — live in weeks, not quarters.