In a world that delivers content in 20 second bites, seasonal calendars feel absurdly Jurassic. It’s no wonder that inventory and markdowns remain a central feature of quarterly earnings reports. The fashion industry coined the term “see now, wear now” well over a decade ago but industry practices are still stuck in the Stone Age. To better match quantities and trends with actual demand, planners are employing a range of strategies to reengineer assortment planning, forecasting and timelines.
In a panel hosted by PI Apparel, executive level planners across Fabletics, Delta Galil, Tibi and Happy Socks say the undertaking requires them to foster collaboration across their organizations, clue into what’s happening on social, and employ both technology and creative problem solving. But most of all, they say, they must be willing to fail.
And the first step is recognizing that lifestyles have changed. If an influencer posts something today, shoppers want it on their doorstep tomorrow.
“We’re getting a lot of trends coming from places like Tiktok and social media, and people see things that go viral. We all want to buy them and feel part of that moment in the moment,” said Francis Fountain, director of buying and merchandise planning, Fabletics.
To better meet that moment, Fabletics scrapped its 6-month plans. It now operates on quarters so the team can read, react and deliver faster. Fountain said this necessitated other changes in order to speed up the development process. For one, the company cuts lead times associated with design and fittings by recoloring key shapes from one season to the next. Additionally, she said the team is more disciplined about reserving 20% of its open-to-buy for in-season buys so it doesn’t miss a viral moment. “I think brands that are buying completely upfront now and have no money left to buy in season are the ones who are going to miss out in the future,” she said.
Happy Sox also rejiggered its calendar. The company now has three, split into long, mid and short-term instead of one monster 18-month timeline. “We pulled apart our entire end-to-end timeline so we could ensure that we’re leaving space to react to trends, not just from a financial point of view, but actually, from a process point of view,” said Emma Reid, general manager of planning at Happy Socks. That process also coincided with a reevaluation of its sourcing and design processes as well in an effort to move faster and become more agile.
Reid also put greater importance on immediacy.
“I now insist on working on a monthly basis. I want to buy monthly. I want to review the sales monthly. I want us to be on top of what’s not working so we can react and get out of any commitment that we’ve got, but then also be all over what is working,” Reid stated.
Karolina Kozlowska, planning director for Tibi, also prefers to work on a monthly forecast. She finds it helps her integrate her team’s efforts with the rest of the company. For instance, with up-to-the-moment insights into sales data, she’s able to ping marketing for support when certain products need a push.
Kozlowska said she’s also more entrenched with the production process than ever before, which is paying dividends. That close relationship allows her to pivot when things go sideways, as was the case with a sweater order that was going to miss its sales window. Rather than face markdowns, she was able to redirect those inputs. “I’d rather have liability left in the yarn than a full ready product, and we could maybe reuse the yarn,” she said.
Ultimately, she said transforming operations is a company-wide undertaking.
“The key to this is really collaboration and organizational nimbleness,” Kozlowska said. “It’s one thing to tear apart that end-to-end process, but if the whole organization isn’t on the same page with that or has different objectives, it doesn’t really matter.”
These types of cross functional operations are key, according to Kiera Ganann, global GM, senior vice president of Delta Galil, who doesn’t believe in clean handoffs between departments. For her, every function bleeds into the other.
“Where I found the most success is making sure that the merch function is watching the entire pipeline so they can see a vision executed,” she said. “Design watches that entire pipeline to inform what’s going to happen in the future. [Product development] so they can help pivot as new ideas pass. And planning watches the entire pipeline to understand the intent as they review the data, because those organizations that only look at hindsight data never move forward.”
Leaning into technology
Fountain said while merchandisers are great at crunching the numbers, it can be hard to identify missed opportunities and the factors behind the sales data. That’s where she’s seen AI be particularly beneficial.
“Sometimes we think, well, the maths is the maths. But actually, now AI can pull in so many more external factors, which is then giving us faster, more accurate results,” she said, adding it takes into account historical data, weather tracking, social sentiment and promotional info to provide a holistic look at the sales environment. “It can kind of rebalance your sales forecast, and then obviously what we can do as a result is rebalance our demand forecast as well.”
The hope is to reduce the typical 30 to 40% planning inaccuracy rate down to 10 to 15% with this new technology, she said.
Fountain is particularly pleased with AI when it comes to planning core product, but she said it’s not as useful for high-fashion goods.
Kozlowska is equally bullish on AI for core, but she agreed, novelty is lagging.
“One thing that AI hasn’t nailed yet, or us as humans either, is the newness component,” she said. “With luxury, the customer is not necessarily looking for another black wool trouser. They want something that is going to push their wardrobe. This is the part that AI still doesn’t get exactly.”
Tibi is also having great success with AI when it comes to sizing. She said her tool has alleviated the pain of rerunning size curves every collection. Now she’s able to find a historical product that uses the same size convention and AI does the work for her, so much so that it’s keeping pace with shrinking GLP-1 bodies. “The Ozempic effect is real. It got picked up by our size curves naturally, without me even thinking about that,” she said.
Even with the wins that can come with AI, Fountain said it’s important to note there is also a learning curve.
“There’s definitely a level of technical skill that you need now, because you need to know what information is feeding into these tools and how they’re generating their output,” she said, adding it also takes discernment in order to avoid being misled. “You need to be a little bit more insightful. You need to be able to question things… not just taking a package as kind of done and dusted.”
Ganann said even with AI, planning isn’t an exact science. This will go wrong. From a big picture standpoint, she just wants to see that her organization is moving in the right direction.
“Even with AI, we’re just simply not going to have all the answers for any category,” she said. “The real focus is overall growth, not the mistakes that you made or the wins that you had, but overall, how are you pushing forward and challenging people about what they did differently to get smarter.”
Kozlowska agreed, saying it’s not about being safe. It’s about being smart. “As long as you have balance in the areas where you’re taking risk and the areas where you’re taking opportunity, so that even if the opportunity tanks, you have your core and it’s healthy, it has profit and it’s stable.”
