The benefits of being a MADE TO ORDER fashion brand

One of the greatest challenges right now for the fashion industry is the sheer volume of garments being produced. In order to meet minimums, keep costs tight and supply products on-demand, it’s become the norm for brands to produce goods in bulk.

This culture of over-production has fuelled over-consumption and created a market where customers often expect goods to always be in stock and deliveries to be swift.

The brands take on the risk for estimating what to produce, and are left to deal with the waste of unsold product, regularly discounting (or worse, dumping) to shift stock before the next delivery.

But there is another way.

Since I began my career in fashion, I’ve worked mainly in luxury bridal. By their very nature, these kinds of brands work in a particular production pattern, designed to manage supply and demand in a way that works for both company and customer - MADE TO ORDER.

Using the ‘made to order’ manufacturing method means that essentially, you don’t make anything until it’s been ordered by the end customer.

In the bridal and eveningwear world, this usually means launching a collection, creating samples (and selling samples to wholesale stockists) for end customers to try on and order from. It can work similarly with an e-com site too.

Simple right? Well, perhaps.

There are a number of pros and cons to working in this way, many of which I’m going to talk through in this blog. But - SPOILER ALERT! - my overriding opinion is that this method, in conjunction with changing consumer behaviour, could play a big part in the redevelopment of sustainability standards within our industry.

So let’s take a look, first, at a few of the challenges of Made to Order production.

Managing workflow:

If you’re working in a bulk production pattern, you’ll know that each season you’ll design garments, place production orders based on expected sales, run your reports to work out what raw materials you need, order and deliver them, and wait for your manufacturer to deliver the goods (simplified, I know - but you get the gist).

With MTO, this process is a little more complicated. Instead of running a big production maybe 1-4 times a year (and completing all the tasks that go along with that) you will need to create a rolling production schedule, meaning you will be monitoring sales that come in, then making production orders to match them.

It’s still pretty simple in terms of the paperwork, but when it comes to managing your raw material supplies it can get much more complicated. Depending how you manage this and how often you are running production orders (in my method for luxury bridal/rtw I suggest once a month) you may find that your manufacturer is still working on the last order whilst you’re raising the next.

So you do need to have a really good handle on your raw materials inventory and a way to monitor it, so you can always stay a step ahead.

Similarly, because products are being made for specific orders, you do need a robust system for matching up production received with the right customer’s order (particularly in bridal where there may be bespoke elements or specificities on a particular garment). And of course, this also means that you have to have real trust in your manufacturers ability to 100% fulfil the order - they can’t short-ship or you won’t be able to deliver.

Of course, there are ways you can shape your business model to minimise the impact of these factors. For instance, if you are working in ready to wear, whether that’s eveningwear, slow fashion, womens, mens or childrens collections, you can utilise a preorder model - this means you would launch a product/collection, accept orders and then make in one batch. This makes it a mini version of bulk production really, and reduces the overlap described above. It’s a more difficult concept though for a bridal brand, given that the wear date is finite and therefore more flexibility is helpful for your customer.

Material availability:

Another challenge of made to order production, can be the availability of raw materials on a longer term basis. If you are using the model described above where you make a sample and sell from it, this opens up the possibility to sell this style for a longer time period than just one season, but of course that means you’ll also need access to your chosen RMs for longer.

You’ll need good relationships with your suppliers so you’re kept in the know about potential discontinuations of materials, and it’s also advisable to include robust disclaimers in your Ts and Cs to forewarn customers about this eventuality and give yourself the right to substitute a fabric when necessary.

Another way to operate on the MTO model and avoid this issue, is to work on limited runs. This links back to the preorder model mentioned above, and utilising this would mean you could offer a ‘whilst materials last’ option - if you have 1 roll of 50m you can cut only the number of garments that fulfils. When it’s gone, you offer in another fabric.

Smaller production runs:

I’m noting this as a challenge because we all know that many manufacturers prefer (or often only accept) larger MOQs per line, so making a few sizes here and there across several SKUs wouldn’t be acceptable to them. For this reason you would need to ensure you have the right kind of manufacturer to take on this work, and that they fully understand your expected sales levels. It also mean often that production will be more expensive per piece so this needs to be built into the price.

Remember this can be offset a bit by the lack of wasted stock that you may need to discount and/or write off if you use the the bulk production method. Also consumers are a bit more aware these days and many will be keen to buy into a brand that offers this level of exclusivity (who wouldn’t want to have a garment made especially for them??) and who employ these more sustainably-minded practices.

Delayed delivery:

The last challenge I want to highlight is the idea that your customers will need to wait for their products.

In this crazy fast world we live in, where many big brands will deliver to you the same day, people often aren’t used to this delay in receiving what they’ve bought. It’s something you would need to be clear on in your marketing, to ensure the positives are highlighted and give customers a reason to buy from you rather than the stock alternatives.

Remember also, that lots of luxury items come with a delayed delivery - think runway looks on preorder, and subscription model perfumes with long waiting lists and brand new cars - it’s an easy spin for customers to understand that this delay is something to covet. All good things come to those who wait, right?

Now, let’s get positive!

Now you understand a little more about the challenges involved vs traditional bulk production, I want to move on to some of the amazing benefits. As you’d expect, a lot of these are actually linked to the challenges, so you just need to choose to see the positive side :)

Low initial investment:

You’ll still need to cover sampling and product development plus your shoot, but that’s pretty much where the upfront investment ends. The absolute GAME CHANGER for a lot of new brands is that you don’t need to invest money in a stock holding before you launch. How great is that?

This has the dual benefit of cutting the costs of bringing your goods to market, and lowering your risk, because if you don’t sell much, you don’t make much.

No waste stock:

Moving neatly on, this runs directly into our next benefit - because you haven’t had to guess what might sell and order lots of stock up front, it means you won’t end your season with a pile of unsold items.

Fast fashion brands go into production knowing this will be a reality and actually build it into the margin of their goods to ensure they have room to discount or discard a portion of stock at the end of each season. How crazy is that? According to Good on You in their 2022 article about fashion waste an estimated 30% of fashion production goes unsold!

By making to order, you are eradicating this issue and can therefore price your goods transparently and fairly for your customer.

And even more importantly, think about the ecological benefits of bypassing this waste. We all know there is a BIG problem with end-of-life waste in the apparel industry (according to Fashion Revolution, the equivalent of 1 garbage truck of textile waste is sent to landfill or burned globally EVERY SECOND - and rising) so working with a model that removes at least one of the causes of this seems like a no-brainer.

Flexibility:

I’ve always been a fan of doing things your own way, and MTO makes this possible.

The real beauty of having a made-to-order collection is that you remain flexible in terms of what you offer. You don’t need to be tied to the constraints of rigid, seasonal collections, and if a style is no longer selling you can easily remove it from the collection without worrying about what to do with all that stock.

Adding something new is as easy as making a single sample, and you have complete freedom to add and drop styles as often as you choose so the collection becomes much more organic.

Of course, there are things to consider with this - if you are wholesaling goods to other businesses you need to ensure you’re being fair to them. Ie, if they’ve bought a sample from you it’s only fair they have a decent amount of time to sell from it before it gets discontinued.

But essentially, you can make up your own rules when it comes to how frequently you are changing up your collections - no more trying to keep up with the ferocious pace of fast fashion!!

This of course naturally suits niches like Bridal, or those brands that are promoting slower fashion and the ‘buy less buy better’ ethos. Changing consumer behaviour means there is opportunity for a larger proportion of the apparel industry to adopt this approach.

Improved cashflow:

I mentioned this briefly above in terms of start up costs and risks, but regardless of your stage of business, made-to-order production has huge benefits in terms of cashflow. You will always be making the sale (and at very least taking a deposit) before you go ahead with production, so you will totally avoid that lag of spending then waiting to be paid.

This makes MTO a much safer and more easily maintainable way to launch and run a business, without the need for outside investment.

Lower impact:

Ok, I’ve already talked about this quite a lot throughout this article, so I know you know this is one of the MAJOR points I want to get across!

Using the MTO production method lowers your impact on the environment. Without even really trying you will automatically be reducing waste, and lowering use of resources on things like over-production, storage, shipping, returns and much more.

You will also be encouraging your customers to really appreciate their investment in clothing and consider it a special and covetable act, rather than opting for daily deliveries of cheap items with free returns…being more conscious in their consumption is a big step towards reducing the incredible volume of product out there.

So, I hope this rundown has been helpful, and has given you some food for thought when it comes to how to manufacture your apparel collections. There will be a ‘best option’ for each brand, depending on what you’re hoping to achieve, and even utilising some of the principles mentioned above could have a positive impact on your business, finances and footprint.

If you’re a new brand, just starting out, think about whether this is a method you could utilise - does it create an easier, less risky route to market for you?

If you’re an established brand, could you start running a portion of your production on a made-to-order basis? Marketing it as an exclusive opportunity that your customers can buy into.

If you have any queries or comments, feel free to email me at [email protected].

And if you’d like to set up MTO production but feel you need further support, why not book a (no obligation) chat and we can see if we’re the right fit?