In today’s fast-paced apparel and footwear industry, timely and accurate order fulfillment is vital in achieving customer and brand loyalty. When a high volume of customer orders are coming in across multiple channels, it can be extremely difficult to determine who gets what, and when. This is where order allocation plays a crucial role, making the fulfillment process more accurate and efficient.

Order allocation is a feature available in robust apparel management software applications (also known as ERP software). An effective erp for apparel enables the allocation of inventory to orders, while streamlining the order fulfillment process and eliminating the need for manual intervention.

Benefits of Inventory Allocation in Apparel ERP Software

Apparel management software can revolutionize inventory allocation for apparel and footwear brands in several ways. Here are some of the most significant benefits:

Accurate Inventory Tracking

Apparel erp software provides real-time inventory tracking, allowing you to monitor stock levels across all your channels. This helps you make informed decisions about inventory allocation, preventing stockouts and overstocking.

Sales Trend Analysis

Apparel erp software can analyze sales trends, allowing you to forecast future demand accurately. This helps you allocate inventory based on customer demand, preventing overstocking, and missed sales opportunities.

Automated Inventory Allocation

Apparel management software can automate inventory allocation processes, reducing manual effort while increasing efficiency. This helps you save time and focus on other critical aspects of your business.

Optimized Supply Chain Management

Apparel management software can improve supply chain management by tracking inventory levels across multiple locations and warehouses. This helps you optimize inventory allocation and reduce shipping costs. By allocating orders to the best production resources, apparel companies can optimize their production processes while minimizing waste.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Allocation goes a long way in ensuring that orders are completed accurately and on time.  This means apparel brands can see improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. Building a better customer service for the company can lead to increased sales and revenue.

Enhanced Decision-Making

By providing real-time data on order allocation and the overall supply chain, apparel companies unveil roadblocks, discover greater opportunities, and can make more informed decisions about how to allocate resources and optimize processes.

Greater Visibility and Control

By using tools such as apparel ERP systems to manage order allocation, companies can gain greater visibility and control over their entire business.

A Little About How Inventory Allocation Works

When allocating customer orders within a fully integrated erp for apparel, not only can the logic evaluate and reserve product currently in stock against eligible orders, but it also can reserve inventory that has yet to be received into the warehouse, whether it’s still in factory production, or in transit to the warehouse. 

Stock allocation is a sophisticated algorithm and a critical part of the fulfillment process in the apparel industry. When there are a myriad of customer orders in the system, many company-assigned RULES can be taken into consideration when allocating inventory, such as:
 

Standard FIFO Fulfillment

This is a typical first-in-first-out method which for multi-channel apparel and footwear companies, isn’t a likely solution that will work. Each order that comes in allocates and reserves any inventory available regardless of any other factors.

Order Type

Assigning an order type is a way of categorizing orders and how they may be treated in the system.  This also applies to allocation. One example might be a Direct-To-Consumer order type. Typically, when processing consumer orders through an e-commerce website, DTC orders may only be set to allocate inventory that is physically in stock in the warehouse, whereas larger wholesale orders typically have wider ship windows and can reserve inventory against both on-hand and in-transit stock.

Customer Priority

How a business sets their customer priority codes can also translate to an allocation rule. If there aren’t enough units to satisfy all orders, allocation will reserve the inventory against the orders based on highest to lowest customer priority.

Complete Order or Line Item

Customers may only want the order when it is able to be shipped in its entirety so it’s important to be able to keep partial orders from allocating and possibly being processed within the warehouse.  More robust apparel erp software applications will even allow for min/max settings when allocating.

Ship Windows

Most retail customers will specify a ship date range indicating when an order can be sent to a customer. Depending on how you sell your product, these orders can be sent months prior to the specified requested ship date range. Inventory allocation plays a crucial role in these scenarios because allocation can reserve inbound inventory from the factory against these types of orders, allowing the on-hand stock to be available to more immediate order fulfilment needs.

With none of these automated tools in place, manual stock allocation can be time-consuming and prone to errors and missed ship dates, ultimately resulting in chargebacks. Automated apparel ERP software removes the need for manual intervention, enabling real-time stock allocation, and ensuring accurate inventory management.

Automated order allocation can free up a significant amount of time. Employees may now concentrate on higher-value tasks that need their attention. Since time is saved, mistakes are decreased, and efficiency is increased.

In summary, the automatic order allocation function speeds order fulfillment, eliminates manual tasks, reduces errors, and gives staff members more time to focus on other activities. In order for apparel and footwear businesses to maintain their competitive edge and customer satisfaction, automatic allocation is a must have.

Apparel Business Systems offers a tried, tested, and robust apparel management software solution. From concept to cash, and with prominent allocation functionality, companies can better position themselves for success and growth with the ABS ERP application.

Want to learn more about how Apparel Business Systems can help align your business with greater efficiency while cutting operational costs? Contact us for a brief introduction today!