Ted Hurlbut

Retailers Adopt a 'Wear Now' Approach

August 5, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
It used to be that when August came around, you could walk into a clothing store and find plenty of options for the fall. But a number of chains are bumping up inventory of current season lines for people to wear now. What do you think about the "wear now" approach being taken by clothing retailers?      [more...]

At the risk of offending anyone, can I interject a reality check. There's a reason why January and February, and July and August, have traditionally been clearance months, where seasonal goods like winter coats and swimwear are marked down. Nobody wants to buy winter coats in March, nor swimwear in September, at any price.

Up until now, nobody has figured out how to get to 100% sell-throughs at full retails. So "buy now, wear now" in theory is great, except that up until now, the devil's been in the execution.

I say "up until now" because, as mentioned above, there are fashion retailers like Forever 21 and H&M who are dramatically shortening lead times and increasing the frequencies of deliveries, which help drive sell-throughs much closer to 100%. But among those other retailers who have pursued a more traditional supply chain strategy, based on minimizing landed costs, there's been little demonstration that they can effectively match supply with ultimate demand, short of simply cutting back dramatically on quantities.

"Buy now, wear now" is clearly a customer-centric strategy, but one that requires a complete overhaul of the supply chain and business model. Based upon inventory management practices up until now, I think it still might be a while before the industry at large can pull it off.