How Apparel (Fashion) Business Run In The world
Who are working in apparel or fashion industry directly or indirectly; they need to know how apparel or fashion business is running. To understand the apparel or fashion business need to know from the designing process to sell out the goods from the outlet.
Concept, Trend and Idea generation
At first, a designer works to create a concept and accordingly makes a storyboard. They closely monitor the current trends, take inspiration from past fashion trends and also forecast the future fashion trend to create a particular style. They take help from the world-famous fashion forecasting company around the world for future fashion trends especially for color, texture, fabric, and design.
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Design and Product Development
After making a concept designer starts to design a style and prepare a styling card with the full information of all materials so that sample can be made accordingly for the next steps.
Budgeting
Buying team will prepare a budget for the particular style since in a season there are a lot of styles which need to buy for the selling. So, budgeting is important to determine how much quantity has to buy for a specific style of product.
Retail Strategy
After design development, the next stage is retail strategy. It is a general marketing plan for a product or a service to reach and influence the consumers. The retail strategy covers everything from what retail channels a product or service will be available to and what should be the price or sales incentive to be given. It also included how to display the product on the shelf of the outlet.
Fabric Development
As per the designer style card, the most important part is to develop fabric. Without developing fabric sample making is not possible therefore fabric team works to develop fabric so that they can meet the designer requirements to make a sample for the next steps.
Sampling
After developing the fabric sample making process starts with the actual fabric, trims, and accessories. This sample will be the most important tool to source the exact product from the suppliers.
Range Planning
The range planning process generally involves the teamwork of the designer, buyer, and merchandiser to define the product mix. This finds the design details of all styles, the required lead times for each style, and the number of phases within each range.
Assortment Planning
It is a process whereby products are selected and planned to maximize sales and profit for a specific period of time. The assortment plan considers the financial objectives, seasonality of merchandise, color, and size to ensure a proper supply chain as per the market demands.
Sourcing Strategy
After completing the above procedures buyer sent the tech pack with the original sample to a different country’s own office (liaison office) or trading house or directly manufacturer for pricing as well as sample. The buyer always gives priority to source products from those suppliers who ensure a competitive price, good quality, faster communication, and on-time shipment.
Production
Once the price is confirmed with the supplier then production arrangement is started by the suppliers by making an initial sample. If fabric and accessories are nominated by the buyer then that has to arrange accordingly to in-house. In the production stage buyer’s designated QA will check the production quality so that goods can be sent as per the buyer’s AQL.
Shipping
After final inspection pass by buyer’s QA supplier arrange to send the goods to the buyer country. If the buyer nominates any shipping line then goods have to hand over accordingly.
Distribution
Once goods will arrive in the warehouse then it has to send to the outlet or franchise shop as per the demand list so that goods can be reached to the consumer’s hand.
Promotion
Without promotional activities, successful selling is not possible. If buyers cannot arrange promotional activities appropriately then there is a possibility of unsold inventory. For promoting the goods buyer needs to focus on social media, website advertisement, mobile apps, newspapers, magazines, fashion shows, fashion fairs, TV commercials, and so on to ensure that all the goods will be sold out to maximize profit.
Sales
When goods will be reached in the outlet then visual merchandisers will arrange to show the product attractively so that customer will be influenced to buy the product for the outlet.
Customer Reaction
The last stage is to observe the sales. How sales are going on and are it satisfactory to clear the full quantity goods to form the store. After selling a product to the customer need to take feedback whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the product. If any claim comes from the consumer that has to solve so that, customer can feel that they are in the right brand/shop to buy again and again.