Building a brand with a highly curated customer experience is an incredible achievement. But behind the scenes, delivering that experience often introduces layers of operational complexity that can be difficult to manage as you scale.

Miron Crosby is a perfect example of this. Founded by fifth-generation cattle ranchers, the brand blends heritage craftsmanship with fashion-forward design to create luxury Western boots. With beautiful retail stores in Aspen, Dallas, and Houston, alongside a growing eCommerce presence, they have built a remarkable omnichannel business.

However, their unique approach to merchandising brought a specific set of backend challenges. Here is a look at how they navigated a complex inventory model and streamlined their operations to prepare for their next phase of growth.

The challenge of a split catalogue

Many eCommerce brands rely on a predictable catalogue of staple products. Miron Crosby takes a more dynamic approach. They maintain a reliable line of core styles that are always available, but they mix these with highly curated, limited-run releases inspired by global fashion trends.

While this creates an exciting, fresh experience for the customer, it makes inventory planning incredibly complicated.

In the early days, the team managed this balancing act using manual spreadsheets. This is a common starting point for most brands, but as Miron Crosby added new retail locations and diversified their product lines, tracking inventory and financials across different states and platforms quickly became unsustainable. Relying on intuition to forecast how a limited-run boot might perform in Aspen versus Dallas was no longer enough.

Unifying physical stores and online sales

To keep up with their expanding footprint, they knew they needed to move away from fragmented workflows. They implemented Brightpearl by Sage as their central operating system, integrating it directly with Shopify to power both their point-of-sale and eCommerce channels.

Having a single source of truth changed the daily reality for the team. Instead of guessing what stock was sitting in which location, they gained complete visibility across the entire business.

When a brand operates multiple physical locations alongside an online store, shared inventory visibility is crucial. It allows the team to allocate stock much more effectively, ensuring the right boots are in the right store at the right time, without accidentally overselling online.

Speeding up the financial close

Operational visibility is great, but the financial impact of centralising data is often where brands see the biggest immediate return.

Before upgrading their systems, the team at Miron Crosby found that reconciling data across different locations and spreadsheets was incredibly time-consuming.

"What used to take us 20 to 30 days to close the books now takes about four to five days. That alone has made a huge difference for the business." 

— Kirstin Smith, Chief Operations Officer, Miron Crosby

Reducing the month-end close by 83% isn't just about saving administrative hours. It means the leadership team has access to timely, accurate financial insights, allowing them to make strategic business decisions based on current data rather than numbers that are a month old.

Forecasting with data instead of intuition

To solve the specific challenge of balancing core styles with limited releases, the team added Inventory Planner alongside Brightpearl to bring a new layer of intelligence to their purchasing.

Previously, a lot of buying decisions relied on gut feeling, making it hard to know exactly what was needed and when. By introducing data-driven forecasting, the system analyses historical performance and automated recommendations to take the guesswork out of the equation.

The team can now see exactly what they need to order and when to place the purchase orders. This allows them to be highly strategic with their capital, avoiding the trap of over-ordering while ensuring they don't miss out on sales opportunities during peak demand.

Planning for sustainable growth

By aligning purchasing decisions with actual demand and unifying their sales channels, Miron Crosby has built a foundation that supports their boutique feel without the backend chaos. They now have the infrastructure in place to confidently open more store locations without making the business more complicated to run.

Curious how centralised operations can support your retail expansion?

Discover how Brightpearl and Inventory Planner help brands grow effortlessly.