Apparel and Footwear Supply Chain Planning
Apparel, footwear and luxury buys are placed months ahead, by style, color and size, for a season that may not sell through. DemandLabs forecasts new styles from look-alikes, proposes size transfers between stores and ranks factory orders by risk.
What Shapes Apparel, Footwear and Luxury Planning
Fashion demand is planned at the size and color level and committed before the first sale.
The Buy Comes Before the Season
Factories need orders months before the season opens, and reorders on fashion styles rarely arrive in time. The buy rests on how similar styles sold in past seasons.
Each Style Splits Into Sizes
A style sells across sizes, colors and widths, each with its own demand. A store can hold plenty of a style and still turn shoppers away for want of a size.
Leftover Stock Costs Margin
Apparel retailers clear the season with markdowns, and each one cuts into the margin the buy was planned on. Luxury houses limit discounting, so excess stock has few exits.
Solutions for Apparel, Footwear and Luxury
The DemandLabs applications that fit apparel, footwear and luxury, and how each one handles the planning.
New styles take their launch curves from look-alike styles that share category, fabric, color and price point. Forecasts run by item and store, so each size of a style gets its own number.
Explore demand planningPush and lateral transfer proposals are refreshed daily for the DC and every store, showing freight cost and fill-rate gain side by side, so a broken size run can be filled from stock you already own.
Explore inventory optimizationSeason targets cascade by brand and region, each level showing its gap to plan, and style units tie out to the finance view period by period, so the merchandise budget and the style buy agree.
Explore IBPEach factory is scored on financial filings, news, port congestion, weather and ESG ratings, and open purchase orders for the season are ranked by that score across factories and lanes.
Explore supplier riskHow Apparel, Footwear and Luxury Planning Connects
Each style in the season buy links to its size forecast by store, the factory making it and the margin it carries.
Season Buy
- New styles
- Carryover styles
- Price points
Size and Store Forecast
- Store sales
- Online orders
- Look-alike styles
Factory Orders
- Factory lead times
- Ocean lanes
- ESG ratings
Store Stock
- Size availability
- Transfers
- DC holdback
Season Margin
- Full-price sales
- Markdowns
- Stock value
Built for Apparel, Footwear and Luxury
Apparel planning is decided style by style and size by size, long before the season sells.
New Styles From Past Seasons
Each new style is forecast from past-season styles with similar attributes, before it sells a unit.
A Forecast for Every Size
Each size and color is forecast by store, so the buy can follow where each size actually sells.
Broken Size Runs Refilled
Transfer proposals show which store holds the missing size, with freight cost and fill-rate gain next to each move.
Limited Pieces Allocated by Tier
When a luxury style runs short, allocation follows account tier and wholesale commitments, with each account's fill rate shown.
Planning Notes for Apparel, Footwear and Luxury
See all notes
Two questions that separate probabilistic forecasting from a wider confidence band
Two tests separate probabilistic demand forecasting from a wider confidence band: whether lead time is random, and whether the output carries its economics.
23 August 20268 min readOne item, four hierarchies, and none of them were built for planning
Why the product hierarchy inherited from finance or merchandising rarely suits planning, which attributes to store instead of fixed levels, and how to choose the level you forecast at.
21 September 20269 min read
Check the rest of the network before you raise a purchase order
Inventory rebalancing checks the network sideways before a purchase order is raised: consolidating transfer candidates, the obstacles, and when to buy.
22 August 20269 min readApparel, Footwear and Luxury Planning FAQs
Can DemandLabs forecast styles with no history?
A new style takes its launch curve from look-alike styles with similar attributes, such as category, fabric and price point, from your own past seasons.
Does it forecast by size?
Forecasts run at item level by store, so each size and color of a style carries its own number for the buy and for in-season transfers.
Can it rebalance sizes between stores?
The daily transfer proposals point to the store or DC holding the missing size and price the freight against the fill-rate gain.
How long does implementation take?
Eight weeks to the first live cycle for one planning area, with a value review with your CFO in week 10.
See Your Next Season by Style and Size
A 45-minute walkthrough on your own data.