The Essence of Omni-Channel Apparel Retailing
Retailing in any industry today can’t rest on its laurels. Customers expect to be met through a variety of channels, and may even purchase products through several of those channels. Even customers with a preferred channel will interact with your apparel brand through multiple channels. For that reason, even clothing and textile retailers must master the omni-channel retail market.
When it comes to omni-channel retailing for the apparel industry, here are the basic considerations if you want to find even remote success.
- Smart Assortment – With clothing, there are so many variations of even single items that you can’t run a single-channel apparel store, let alone an omni-channel retail operation, without smart assortment. Not only do you have different brands and styles of clothing, but each item comes in a variety of colors and sizes. Smart assortment makes it easy on every level of your retail operation.
- Intelligent allocation – Once you have your apparel products sorted, you’ve got to allocate them to the right stores. Being able to automate that process will solve a lot of issues for your retail chain.
- Product analysis – Purchasing the right products to begin with will determine whether your retail store is profitable. If you order the wrong products, they won’t sell. If you order too many, you’ll have to take losses on markdowns and promotions. If you order too few, you’ll lose sales. Perform the best product analysis for the best omni-channel retail experience.
- Automatic replenishment – Set your apparel replenishment on automatic and let the products arrive just in time.
- Performance management – Compensate your employees by tracking their performance. Otherwise, you’ll overpay or underpay them for the sales work they do.
- Product management – Finally, you need to be able to manage all of your products from the time you order them to the time you sell them. Manage your products throughout the product life cycle.
These pillars of omni-channel retail management ensure that your apparel retail chain operations stay profitable and on track.