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Selling Clothing

Brands, Styles, Colours, Sizes and Seasons

Selling clothing requires some key concepts.  Brand Management, Styles, Colours, sizes and seasons.

1. Brands - generally a company selling clothing will have a number of different brands they manage
2. Article Categories are normally across brands
3. Styles - generally within a brand are a number of styles 
   1. Styles are normally within a single category with only colour variation between different articles
4. Colours
   1. Colours are within a style - normally variations in colour or material or logos etc
5. Sizes
   1. Clothing articles vary in sizes within a colour
   2. Different Article Categories may have different size ranges - example mens shoes vs womens shoes
6. Seasons
   
   1. Clothing is very seasonal with products being available only for short duration and new products being regularly introduced.
   2. Seasons are defined in the system and used in Seasonal Forecasting where products with peaks and troughs and new product introductions can be managed

Key Clothing Processes

The management of a clothing business requires some key processes as well

1. Managing Clothing Articles

   1. A large number of individual SKU's are quickly generated with style / colour / size combinations - each individually tracked.  Management of these is made easy using a shared Parent Article Master so a single Article is used for the settings for a large number of related articles for shared information such as weight, volume, supplier etc.
      1. At the SKU level will be held specific information such as images, barcode, etc.
   2. Regularly new products are introduced so a mass update / create process is required and is done using the Importing Articles Process
      1. Many prospective products are never progressed, so simply removing articles that are never purchased is managed through the Clothing Seasonal Purchase Process
      2. Some seasonal items may never return so simply ways of removing them is done using the Run out Stock process
   3. Managing Samples where stock may be purchased and be a direct sale cost, but not available for sale - and later sold or scrapped.

2. Seasonal Forecasting

   1. Seasonal Forecasting is used to estimate stock requirements based on history and customer level forecasts.
   2. Long product lead times are normal with purchasing required 6 to 18 months in advance - see Seasonal Purchase Order and Clothing Seasonal Purchase Process
   3. Future dated Seasonal Sales Orders may be used to confirm/determine demand and purchases
      1. Demand for some items may not meet supplier minimums leading to them being dropped - so sales orders need an additional step of being "confirmed"

3. Clothing Orders - Sales and Purchasing

   1. Clothing order entry involves selecting the colours and sizes within a style.  
      1. This is made easy using a colour / size grid on Sales Orders, Purchase Orders and printed documents.
   2. Size Patterns are common - generally a small number of the extremes and more of the middle sizes are ordered
   3. Customer Stock levels may be counted and compared to stock level targets across size patterns to recommend orders
      1. Increasingly stores demand reps to recommend orders to fill shelves and stock counts across brands are required with Refill Orders being recommended to the customer based on a count of Customer Stock levels, or sell rates and top sellers.
   4. Sale or Return processes are managed by the customer initiating Return Authorisation process with inbound Return Inspection via the Customer Portal or with the rep or agent.

4. Returns or replacement of unsold stock

   1. Commonly unsold stock becomes the distributors problem - taking back product as a credit and swapping it with new season stock
   2. The Return Authorisation process manages initial free stock reconciliation at end of season and swapping stock processes
      1. Return Inspection ensures credits are only applied to articles that pass inspection on return.

5. End of Season Stock

   1. managed using Run out Stock process
   2. May only be available to special outlets
   3. May attract special pricing via Promotions

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