From Buyer’s Cards to APIs: Lack of Tech is not the problem. So what is?

The Buyer’s Cards: A Low-Tech Dashboard

Back in the ’90s, I worked for a large vertical retailer in South Africa — thousands of stores across apparel, sporting goods, cosmetics, and jewelry.

Every Monday morning, we’d gather around a table with our version of a dashboard: the Buyer’s Cards. Each product had one — a Polaroid stapled to a piece of colored cardboard. The color showed the month it launched. On it: handwritten numbers showing how many units had sold, updated weekly.

We’d lay them out across the table. Bestsellers to one side. Slow movers to the other.

Low-tech? Absolutely. But incredibly effective.

Because we didn’t just see what sold — we could see why. Fast movers had things in common: a cut, a fabric, a color story. The patterns were right in front of us.
That was our version of being “data-driven.” And it worked.

Today? You can do all of that faster, deeper, and cheaper — without leaving your desk.

So why aren’t we doing better?

If the tools are better than ever…

Why aren’t the results?

The phone in your pocket today has more computing power than the entire retail tech stack we used back then. It can run models, query live databases, process AI-driven forecasts, visualize patterns, and connect every node of the chain — in real time, from anywhere.

In 1994, we were lucky to get a product sales report by the next morning.
Today, insights can be instant. And yet...

Most supply chains still move like a hot potato relay race.
Inventory still moves from factory to distributor to warehouse to store — and somehow, consumers are still told:
“Sorry, not in your size.”
“Maybe when you come back in a week.”

So let’s be honest: It’s not the tech. It’s the mindset.

We still reward movements instead of flows—where 'flows' means getting the right product to consumers where and when they want to buy, not shuffling stock in or between warehouses, or pushing stock from point A to point B. We still chase accuracy over responsiveness. We still treat the supply chain as a series of handovers — not as one integrated system that only gets paid when the consumer buys.

Mindset. Measures. Means.

That’s what separates high performance from high investment with low return.

To improve performance, you need the right mindset.
To drive the right decisions, you need the right measures.
To make change possible, you need the right means.

Let’s break it down.

1. Mindset

There’s only one supply chain: the one that ends with the consumer.
Everything we do should serve one shared goal:

Help consumers buy more, more often.

That doesn’t require trusting your partners’ intentions. It requires trusting their behaviour — knowing they’ll act in their own best interest because their success is tied to yours.

That’s when suppliers stop pushing product and start delivering retail performance: Sell-through. Availability. Return on inventory. Free cash flow.
Because when the goals are shared, alignment doesn’t need managing — it becomes inevitable.

2. Measures

We still track fill rate, forecast accuracy, cost-to-serve. They’re useful — but not decisive.

The measure that matters? Throughput. Not just at the factory or the warehouse — but across the entire chain, all the way to your registers, or your partners' points of sale, or the checkout button...

Throughput tells you the truth: Are we just moving stock? Or are we actually fulfilling consumer demand and converting more product to more cash more quickly?

That’s what the Buyer’s Cards showed us — clearly, physically. Today’s tools and networking tech should make that even easier, faster, and smarter. And yet many businesses still can’t see the forest for the forecasts.

3. Means

Yes — functionality matters. But only if it supports the fundamentals. You don’t need more complexity. You need:

• Short, consistent lead times
• Minimal batching
• Frequent movement
• Low or no minimums
• And a culture of continuous improvement

These aren’t luxuries. They’re what make your insights actionable — and your supply chain responsive. Without them? Even perfect data won’t help.

And this isn’t theory.

In more recent years, while running my own SaaS business, we helped the world’s largest sporting goods brand cut lead times to retailers from 21 to 5 days and increase the retailer's throughput and ROI with high double digits. We did the same with a large multi-brand company in Denmark. And again with a well-known luxury bodywear brand from Austria...

Sure, there was an algorithm involved — but the biggest gains gains came from shortening the cash-to-cash cycle, cross-docking (reduce handling in warehouses), automation, and above all:

The means to convert more product to more cash more quickly.

Yes — it sounds simple.
And it is.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
And it definitely won’t happen with more technology features alone.

Because better tech only leads to better business — if it’s paired with the right mindset, measured by the right outcomes, and supported by the right means.

So if you’re asking yourself whether you could do better — and how much better — start there.

In 1994, we had Lotus Notes: rigid, clunky, expensive.
In 2025, we have Excel in the cloud: smart, fast, collaborative.

But neither will help if you’re solving the wrong problem.

Better tools only help when you’re asking the right questions. And the most important ones are still the simplest:

Can you do better?
How much better?
And how?

If you want to find out if you can do better, what needs to change and how to make that change, let’s talk.

We’ve come a long way from the Buyer’s Cards.
Let’s make sure your supply chain can, too.

The consumer isn’t waiting—and neither should you.

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Curious about the true potential of your supply chain? Simply send an email to hello@retailtwin.com and one of us will reach out, or schedule a call with me via the calendar link below.