CHICAGO, IL, May 24, 2005 -- Implementing a customer-centric business strategy may be fairly new to some companies, but not to Sport Chalet, Inc (NASDAQ: SPCH) a full service specialty sporting goods chain. Since 1959, Sport Chalet has practiced the art of seeing things through the eyes of its customers. Now, with 36 stores in California and Nevada and plans to expand into Arizona this year, its strategic focus is to enhance each customer's shopping experience. As it grows into new markets Sport Chalet will use software solutions from SAS, the leader in business intelligence, to learn more about its customers and how best to serve them.

"As we expand into new markets we have a tremendous opportunity with SAS to take our customers' shopping experience to the next level," said Jason Gautereaux, director of inventory management at Sport Chalet. "With financial planning, assortment planning, forecasting and allocation from SAS our assortments can be back checked against financial goals and used to develop inventory plans. With the optimal mix of products our customers will be happier and our stores will be more profitable."

Integrated planning environment

Sport Chalet will take advantage of a family of solutions from SAS and Marketmax, a division of SAS, to analyze and manage sophisticated financial, assortment and allocation strategies.

"The Sport Chalet solution represents the blending of SAS' predictive tools with the industry leading functionality of Marketmax's Integrated Merchandise Planning & Allocation solution," said Lori Schafer, president of Marketmax, a division of SAS. "There are several vendors in this space with point solutions, but SAS is the only vendor to offer a comprehensive, integrated solution. Using multiple vendors creates a lot of extra headaches and expense for companies. With SAS, Sport Chalet gets one integrated solution for a lower total cost of ownership."

Products, services and people

Sport Chalet prides itself on offering expert service and wide-ranging assortments. To assist in planning its merchandise mix Sport Chalet will use assortment planning from SAS to determine which items its stores should carry, in which colors and quantities, and at what price. The financial planning solution will enable Sport Chalet to set business goals based on past, present, and projected future demand.

Sport Chalet will be able to ensure its product mix is synchronized with its financial objectives through a centralized and integrated single database. The information will be integrated with intelligent clustering, forecasting and performance analysis to build the ideal breadth and depth of product based on customers' real interests, location, demographics and buying trends.

The allocation module will enable Sport Chalet to ship merchandise to stores most in need of product. Sport Chalet will be able to determine the best possible allocation quantity by location through the utilization of available data and the selection of key performance metrics to analyze store-specific needs.

"SAS' integrated solution will allow Sport Chalet to back check assortments against financial goals and develop inventory plans. With properly tuned plans Sport Chalet will be able to facilitate the proper flow of goods. Inventory will be efficiently managed, and will free up time and resources moving and storing unsold goods," added Marketmax's Schafer. "This will result in increased revenues, improved margins, and improved inventory visibility. All of which will lead to more satisfied Sport Chalet customers."

From one expert to another

"There were a number of reasons that SAS stood out from the pack," explained Gautereaux of Sport Chalet. "The flexibility of the system and the ability to automate the process and provide recommended assortments was impressive. The people were stellar. The SAS team was one step above the rest in its knowledge of the product and the industry, and in their willingness to partner with Sport Chalet in the long term. Of course SAS' longevity, stability and track record of investing in research and development to provide a product suite for today and the future was a deciding factor too."

About Sport Chalet, Inc.

Sport Chalet, founded in 1959 by Norbert Olberz, is a leading operator of full service specialty sporting goods superstores in California and Southern Nevada. The Company offers over 40 services for the serious sports enthusiast, including backpacking, canyoneering, and kayaking instruction, custom golf club fitting and repair, ski rental and repair, SCUBA training and certification, SCUBA boat charters, team sales, racquet stringing, and bicycle tune up and repair throughout its current 36 locations. The address for Sport Chalet's web site is www.sportchalet.com.

About SAS

SAS is the market leader in providing a new generation of business intelligence software and services that create true enterprise intelligence. SAS solutions are used at more than 40,000 sites - including 96 of the top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500(R) - to develop more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; to enable better, more accurate and informed decisions; and to drive organizations forward. SAS is the only vendor that completely integrates leading data warehousing, analytics and traditional BI applications to create intelligence from massive amounts of data. For nearly three decades, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know(R).

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R) indicates USA registration. Copyright (C) 2005 SAS Institute Inc. Cary, NC, USA. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

SAS Institute
Angela Lipscomb, 919-531-2525
Angela.Lipscomb@sas.com