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This article is a high level run through of the clothing capabilities of the system.
Clothing companies require special sales order and purchase order layouts, the ability to manage multiple sizes for an item, style groups, Brands and Ranges, Seasons and much more.
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Every Business is different - we configure to suit your business - this document is not how you will operate - it is to provide comfort we understand a clothing distributor |
Table of contents
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Clothing companies have a number of special order types
- Seasonal (Indent) orders - selling Articles that are planned for next season, are not yet in stock, and not all of them will be purchased (depending on customer interest)
- Customers will often place multiple indent orders (Across multiple months) and will be incentivised by a discount to provide firm orders.
- Refill Orders - Orders to refill regular stock or seasonal stock if the season is going better than planned
- Back Orders - if some stock is not available and unable to ship when an order of available stock ships. Backorders are created manually from any order that short shipped.
- Drop Ship Orders - some websites will ask you to reserve stock for them as they try to sell it - and ask you to send the products direct to their consumers - but bill the company for the stock.
Selling Clothing - Customer Portal
The customer portal provides a way to give your customer any information you want about your relationship with them
They will also see their prices, promotions available to them etc.
After login - a dashboard is available
Placing orders through the portal wizard
Select items to add to the order
Drill to detailed images or other information
Select the items to purchase
Enter the Quantities
Update the Delivery Details
Selling Clothing - Sales Reps
Sales Reps normally walk into a store and take orders.
A really nice way to take the order is using the orders using the Order Wizard - designed for the sales reps to easily take orders.
Refill Order example - I want more of what I have recently ordered
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Choose items
Drill into a group
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to see the unique styles
Enter Quantities
Check Order Details
Finish the checkout process
Seasonal
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Orders (Order Type = Seasonal)
To purchase for next season - stock that is not yet available - simply choose seasonal order
- The rules change - no longer checks for stock for example
- Filters articles to only those for the season chosen
- Order cannot be Authorised until season is confirmed (from draft status) - Can move to "Awaiting confirmation"
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Selling Clothing - Telesales
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Formatted for high volume order entry
Refills - find what this customer normally orders.
Promotional pricing can apply automatically or alert the user.
Promotions definition
Price lists - view across price lists - update in the grid
Review the Order - adjust qty for each size on the review grid
Update the freight
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Purchasing Clothing
Managing Clothing Stock
Configuration of the system
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All changes to the sales Order are tracked as well as links to the journals involved
Replenishing the Pickface
Each stock item can have a single location in a warehouse designated as the preferred picking bay
The warehouse Pickface can be replenished during warehouse downtime using the Replenishment Dashboard that looks forward to see expected orders and compares it with the current pickface quantities.
Picking Stock
Any Order that is Authorised + due in next week is ready to pick
Select and either pick with a barcode scanner, use touch screen or paper
Picking around the warehouse in order
The system provides a view of where you are going and what is left to go - organised by area in the warehouse so you can plan all the picking in order of location.
Example picklist printout
Grouped by product category and sizes for those that prefer to work from paper marking things off as they go.
Print out the shipping documents
Packing list
Invoice
Courier Arrives to pickup
Mark each order taken with the con-note number easily.
Purchasing Clothing
A purchase order with sizes is similar to a sales order with sizes.
Note: Seasonal orders are for products that are not yet released and are purchased in advance of the season - the status of these stock articles is "Proposed". It is common that many of the items that are proposed for a season do not get enough sales to be justified.
Review sales orders for the suppliers products
While entering the purchase order you can review sales orders that have items supplied by this supplier.
Seasons - managing stock and orders
Suppliers Seasons
- Seasons are maintained on the Supplier. Each supplier may have different indent discounts and cut-off dates.
Season status = Plan
Season in Plan Status: A season in plan does not allow any of the Sales Orders to be Authorised.
- A purchase order will exist with many items being considered for the season - that are in "Proposed" status - ie will not be confirmed until sales prove they are going to be popular enough.Sales orders can be created for any item on the proposed purchase order - but the sales orders cannot go beyond "To be confirmed" status.
- Note that often customers create a number of indent orders for each month of the season as speculative orders
- The Indent discount is used to encourage customers to place firm orders before the season starts and the stock is purchased.
- It also enforces that the sales order cannot be changed without losing the discount.
Season Status = Active from Purchase Order Confirmation
- The Purchase order is adjusted and items that did not generate enough interest status becomes "Archive" status.
- The Purchase order is then sent to the supplier to be confirmed that they can manufacture the items and moves to "Supplier to Confirm" status.
- The Purchase order is then confirmed and the season becomes Active
Once a season becomes Active - Sales orders are confirmed
- All Sales Orders for the season that will get 100% of their stock - move to "Confirmed" status and and email is sent to the customer
- All sales orders for the season that will not get 100% stock (some Articles have been dropped from the season") will be in a list for the reps to contact the customers to be adjusted
As the season rolls on - speculation orders and short shipping
Your customers will ask for more stock - often in advance of it being available and sometimes on speculation it will be made available.
Some of the indent orders placed will be varied if stock is not selling.
The end result is that you will be left with a combination of:
Sales orders you cannot 100% fulfil - so you will need to short ship.
If you ship an order that fulfils less than 100% then the order will show number shipped for that order line to be zero.
You can create a back order easily if the customer requests it for items that did not ship.
Backorders are not created Automatically to ensure a person checks the stock can be fulfilled and the customer still wants it.
Stock that nobody has ordered (leftover stock)
This stock loses value the longer it is kept and needs to be moved ASAP - see Promotions Module
Dashboard for maximising revenue from the stock that is left
This Dashboard looks at all the orders in the system
- ranking them by the most $ value that can be send to a customer from remaining stock, consuming stock by each order
- listing the stock that will be left over after fulfilling all the current orders. This is the stock you need to move before it becomes heavily discounted
Fire Sales to end of season specialists
Finally you have the fire sale of stock that did not sell in the season
- This is either sold in bulk to a organisation that specialises in end of seasons stock.
- You can define a list of these organisations to avoid sales to them affecting your sales reports as stock is really excess in this situation
Discount Websites - Reserving stock for short periods + Ship direct to customer (eg Iconic)
Discount websites that offer stock on a short term at extreme discount.
These companies will ask for stock to be put aside for them (the stock they plan to advertise) and only to be shipped the stock they sell.
This is managed through an order type called "Reservation"
- An order is place in the system for the stock they want to reserve - this stock is no longer available to other orders.
- Then orders are entered for the same company as they come in that are shipped (often directly to the end customer) with a reference to their order number
- These orders add a shipped quantity to the Reservation order
- At the end of the selling process the Reservation order has a record of all stock sent to customers linked to it
- An appropriate invoice is sent to the website company.
Stock Returns
Stock returns reference the order number that shipped them - this ensures any credit is only for the amount they paid.
You can send a replacement in advance - or wait until the item is returned and inspected.
Clothing Stock Articles
Sizes and Barcodes
Stock levels
Web Description
Item Profiles - to sort, group of present items
Configuration of the system lookups
Stock configuration
Cost Centres
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