In the world of fashion retail, seasonal sales can make or break a brand. With peaks during holidays, special promotions, and new collection launches, it’s crucial for retailers to be prepared to meet increased demand. Infor Warehouse Management System (WMS), part of the comprehensive Infor CloudSuite Fashion, offers a variety of features that help fashion brands streamline operations and maximize sales during these critical periods. Here are several ways Infor WMS can support retailers during peak seasons.

1. Automated Replenishment

During peak seasons, ensuring that shelves are stocked with the right products is essential. Infor WMS automates the replenishment process by predicting inventory needs based on historical sales data and current trends. Integrated with Infor CloudSuite Fashion, this system allows retailers to keep inventory flowing smoothly, reducing the risk of stockouts and capitalizing on high-demand items.

2. Efficient Returns Management

Returns can spike during seasonal sales, complicating inventory management. Infor WMS, with its seamless integration in Infor CloudSuite Fashion, streamlines the returns process by providing clear visibility into returned items and their status. The system quickly processes returns and updates inventory levels, enhancing customer satisfaction with a hassle-free return experience.

3. Cross-Docking Capabilities

Cross-docking minimizes storage time by transferring products directly from inbound to outbound shipping. Infor WMS supports this practice, enabling fashion retailers to manage inventory efficiently during peak periods. By ensuring quick turnaround times for high-demand items, brands can reduce storage costs and accelerate delivery, making them more responsive to customer needs.

In the fashion industry, supply chain efficiency is paramount. As consumer demands shift and trends emerge at lightning speed, retailers must adapt quickly to stay competitive. The Infor Warehouse Management System (WMS) is a powerful tool that is revolutionizing how fashion brands manage their supply chains. Here’s how Infor WMS is shaping the future of fashion.

1. Enhanced Inventory Visibility

One of the critical challenges in the fashion industry is managing diverse inventory across multiple channels. Infor WMS provides real-time visibility into inventory levels, allowing retailers to track products from the warehouse to the customer. This transparency ensures that brands can respond swiftly to demand changes, reducing the risk of stockouts or overstock situations. With accurate inventory data, retailers can make informed decisions, optimize stock levels, and improve overall operational efficiency.

2. Streamlined Order Fulfillment

In an industry driven by quick turnarounds, efficient order fulfillment is essential. Infor WMS automates various processes within the warehouse, from picking and packing to shipping. By leveraging advanced algorithms and automation technologies, the system enhances picking accuracy and speeds up fulfillment times. This means that fashion retailers can deliver products faster, meeting customer expectations for speedy service while reducing labor costs.

3. Improved Labor Management

Workforce management is crucial in the fashion supply chain, particularly during peak seasons. Infor WMS offers tools to optimize labor allocation based on real-time workload and productivity metrics. Retailers can better manage their workforce by forecasting busy periods and adjusting staffing accordingly. This not only boosts productivity but also enhances employee satisfaction, leading to a more engaged workforce.

In the ever-evolving fashion industry landscape, it's imperative to reassess traditional practices and embrace innovative approaches to foster sustainability. Rather than perpetually chasing the trend treadmill and inundating the market with new products, fashion companies must pivot towards establishing a dynamic ecosystem of services that actively engage consumers in sustainable practices.

"Evaluating Your Cloud Migration Options: Which Path is Right for Your Business?" discusses the benefits of migrating to the cloud and provides guidance on strategic considerations for cloud migration.

The paper highlights the advantages of cloud-based enterprise software, emphasizing improved agility, reduced total cost of ownership (TCO), enhanced performance and scalability, faster innovation, simplified security and compliance, and increased technology adoption.

It outlines three strategic areas for cloud migration:

1. Core Business Operations: Moving critical business functions like financial, operations, and supply chain management to the cloud.
2. Key Business Processes: Focusing on specific business processes to balance risk and return on investment.
3. Enterprise Analytics: Leveraging cloud data platforms to aggregate data and foster a data-driven culture.

The 2024 fashion forecast presents a cautiously optimistic outlook. Still, there is uncertainty among industry leaders due to various challenges affecting profitability and sustainability, such as economic slowdown, inflation, weak consumer confidence, and unsold inventory. To thrive in this environment, fashion brands must embrace technology, specifically automation and data-driven insights, to make robust decisions, improve operational efficiency and resilience, and navigate disruptions with agility. The future of fashion lies in the intersection of market needs and innovation. As 2024 progresses, fashion companies should focus on significant tech trends to enhance their competitive edge.

As fashion organizations grow to introduce new products or clothing lines, acquire other companies, shift priorities, and change channels to market, key stakeholders can be left out of the conversation. A networked approach to running your company can solve these problems. Collaborative networks work because they engage internal and external partners, workers, and stakeholders, helping to incentivize and execute supply chain processes more effectively than ever before.

New insights will continue to emerge as consumer behaviors shift and production opportunities evolve, but a continuously synchronized and updated network can keep you agile from sketch to store by making critical information accessible to colleagues, organizations, suppliers, and customers. Collaborative networks work to improve customer service, maximize margins, and minimize loss attributed to miscommunications such as missed inventory targets, downtime, spoilage, and other challenges. 

As industry attitudes and consumer behaviors change, so does the challenge of sustaining a business in the fashion industry. The global health crisis has accelerated the need for fashion and retail brand owners to reconsider their current business models to satisfy their digitally native consumers while maintaining omni-channel supply and ensuring sustainable production.

Whether large or small, fashion brands can turn these challenges into opportunities by transforming their business models. How does your organization meet the expectations and desires of today’s digital consumers? Are you still using old technology that might have served you well in the past but is now beyond its shelf life? If you already have an ERP system in place, there’s a good chance it’s no longer able to keep up with your business needs and growth aspirations.

When extreme levels of disruption occur, supply chains immediately launch a survival strategy that tends be focused solely on the enterprise, leaving upstream and downstream trading partners to fend for themselves. Whether scrambling to enable remote work opportunities, implement flexible or staggered labor scheduling, or launch multiple capital preservation strategies, organizations have begun employing a variety of strategies to protect their supply chains and weather the storm.

To ensure the health of the overall supply chain network, the urgency to digitize processes and documents that allow both data and capital to be unlocked has become more prevalent than ever—particularly when a complex number of parties, systems, and document across geographical regions and time zones are involved.

In today’s highly technical, data-driven fashion environment, the limited functionality of spreadsheets and other outdated, manual-entry tools often result in significant time lags, data inaccuracies, linear sequential processes, and an inability to integrate with shared data libraries. When the greatest asset a fashion manufacturers can have is getting new ideas to consumers quickly, manufacturers can’t afford to let technology slow them down.

That’s why fashion companies need Infor CloudSuite™ PLM for Fashion—a modern, product lifecycle
management (PLM) solution that can handle the fast-paced demands of a 21st-century fashion business. It can help brands develop new styles with increased speed, greater flexibility, and more consistent quality.

Based in the cloud, CloudSuite PLM for Fashion lets you work from anywhere, on virtually any device.Innovate faster. Infor CloudSuite PLM for Fashion is a powerful PLM and collaboration platform that can help fashion manufacturers and their value chain partners innovate faster, make processes more efficient, and easily share information. As a result, fashion manufacturers will have the tools they need to create exciting fashions and deliver them to consumers faster.