Apparel Industry: Stay One Step Ahead of Changes in Customer Demand
Today’s apparel brands and retailers face more disruption and uncertainty than ever. They must deal with rapid, unpredictable changes in tariffs and trade. Respond to consumer demands for greater sustainability and transparency in the supply chain. Adjust to shifting purchasing power from baby boomers to millennials and Generation Z. Meet greater digital expectations from consumers. And outmaneuver an onslaught of new competitors from around the globe. All of these forces have created a need for faster, more insightful decisions.
The Demand Solutions Digital Supply Chain platform is designed to help apparel manufacturers and distributors enhance their profitability as they maneuver in this changing environment.
Apparel brands and retailers use Demand Solutions to:
- Manage product lifecycle transitions from season to season.
- Improve the effectiveness of promotions while reducing weeks of supply.
- Improve the profitability of seasonal collections by creating forecasts at the earliest opportunity.
- Deliver the customized assortments retailers want—and support daily replenishment to maximize revenue.
- Automate routine tasks and focus more attention on delighting the customer.
- Make faster decisions based on real-time data to shorten the time from product concept to customer delivery.
Stay Ahead of Changing Consumer Tastes
Due to volatile consumer needs, apparel brands and retailers must constantly refresh and redesign their product lines. They must also support daily replenishment so that they can maximize their revenue. There’s no time for planning software that can’t keep up. Demand Solutions’ algorithmic optimization capabilities excel at planning products with non-existent, lumpy, or seasonal production introductions.
With Demand Solutions, apparel companies can:
- Forecast by SKU to manage variables such as style, color, and size.
- Predict sales for thousands of SKUs with seasonal life spans.
- Reduce sampling costs by establishing product viability before issuing sample requests.
- Respond automatically to seasonality, shifting growth trends, and product mix transitions.
- Evaluate the best sources of supply by generating multiple supply plans that consider all restraints.
- Generate sourcing plans that keep inventories in sync with ever-changing forecasts and static capacity constraints.
- Raise gross margins by reducing the cost of goods sold through line item price negotiations, raw material commitments, and capacity planning.
- Forecast by SKU at the customer level and summarize in total by SKU, customer, sales channel, region, product family, supplier, and more.
Meet Your Greatest Supply Chain Challenges
Building customer loyalty while staying profitable is a tall order. But the complexity of your supply chain should never be a pain point for your customers. Apparel brands and retailers are dealing with volatile demand, dynamic pricing, channel complexity, and high turnover in styles—all with faster and faster turnarounds.
That’s why you need an AI-powered synchronized plan to power your supply chain from concept to customer. Explore how Demand Solutions can help you get there.
