How L Cosmetics Improved Inventory Turnover 25% with Automated Demand-Driven Ordering

L Cosmetics, a 26-store Estonian health & beauty retail chain with more than 10,000 SKUs, improved inventory turnover by 25% and cut average overstock by 6% within three months of implementing LEAFIO Inventory Optimization. The retailer automated demand forecasting and order generation, replacing a manual, decentralized process that caused empty shelves during promotions and overstock of fast-selling items. Today, 100% of its store assortment and 25% of its central-warehouse assortment run through automated ordering, and 50% of order schedules reach suppliers automatically. The team delivered the entire project remotely, running every implementation and training session over the phone.

Metric	Result
Inventory turnover	+25%
Average overstock	−6%
Store assortment on automated ordering	100%
Order schedules auto-sent to suppliers	50%
Order generation model	Centralized and automated

Before LEAFIO, three departments — retail, distribution, and purchasing — managed inventory separately, generating orders through the accounting system across two parallel flows: retail stores and wholesale. Store managers placed retail orders by hand, based on minimum stock levels and recent sales, under partial oversight from the purchasing department. The bulk-purchasing department handled central-warehouse orders to external suppliers, along with distribution for marketing activity.

This manual, decentralized setup created recurring problems:

• Empty shelves cost sales. With orders built by hand, stock often arrived late — most visibly during promotions, when goods reached stores only after the promo had already started.
• Best-sellers piled up. Store managers tended to over-order high-demand products, which added up to significant overstock across the network.
• Manual work crowded out strategy. Placing orders by hand consumed hours and overloaded the team. Manual analysis kept buyers busy with routine tasks instead of strategy — tracking key inventory KPIs, pinpointing problem areas, and understanding their causes.

Management decided a dedicated system was the way forward: one that would automate ordering and add analytics to measure inventory efficiency across the entire chain.

LEAFIO Inventory Optimization automated order generation and lightened the buyers' workload. The system forecasts demand and builds orders automatically on a schedule, sending them straight to suppliers — so replenishment runs on data rather than manual estimates. It also centralized ordering across the chain and added analytics to track inventory efficiency. Ongoing support proved decisive: the Customer Success team stays with users throughout the subscription.

A 14-person team from L Cosmetics drove the rollout — a project manager, an IT specialist, and specialists in retail, distribution, marketing, and warehousing — with a LEAFIO project manager guiding the work.

LEAFIO followed a proven methodology refined across more than a dozen client projects. The rollout moved through clear stages: auditing inventory management processes, setting up data exchange between the ERP and LEAFIO Inventory Optimization, training users, piloting and scaling auto-ordering across the assortment, adopting the analytics module, and reviewing results against the original goals.

"The process of team interaction was as comfortable as possible. We never interacted live on video. The implementation and training took place entirely over the phone.
The client fully trusted our company’s expertise, leading to positive results and timely project completion." - Yana Bondar, LEAFIO AI Project Manager.

Three factors defined the success:

• a shift from decentralized to centralized order generation;
• a new delivery approach — ending backdated entries made the process fully transparent;
• a shared focus on results and trust in the system.

“We have complete confidence in the system, so we didn't want to impose our processes on it. Let's see what LEAFIO Inventory Optimization has to offer.” - said a representative of the L Cosmetics retail chain.

At the start, the project set three goals: streamline inventory management processes (switch on auto-ordering and free buyers' time for assortment work), reduce stock, and improve turnover.

Within three months, L Cosmetics met all three. Orders now generate automatically on a schedule and go straight to suppliers, with 50% of order schedules fully auto-sent. Automation replaced error-prone manual calculations, so orders stay accurate and consistent. Purchasing managers now spend more of their time on strategy and company development, and less on routine operations.

The figures behind the change:

• inventory turnover improved by 25%;
• average overstock fell by 6%;
• 100% of the store assortment and 25% of the central-warehouse assortment now run through the system.

L Cosmetics reached these results in three months — ahead of the six-month average payback for LEAFIO AI projects. Next, the chain plans to deepen its use of the analytics module, working with a LEAFIO Customer Success manager to roll out 40+ reports that surface inventory efficiency and bottlenecks across the network.

L Cosmetics is a health & beauty (drogerie) retail chain that has operated in Estonia for over 15 years, running 26 multi-brand and mono-brand stores with an assortment of more than 10,000 SKUs across cosmetics, perfumery, personal care, and household goods. It offers well-known international brands — including Natura Siberica, Vivienne Sabó, The Saem, Organic Shop, and Cleanic — at affordable prices for women, men, and children.