3 Growth Tactics Scaling Fashion Brands are Using in Wholesale

In Summary 

Looking to expand your wholesale business quickly and strategically? Here are three wholesale brand growth strategies fashion companies can implement today to help achieve their goals:

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• Streamlining processes: Digitize as many elements of your fashion wholesale processes as possible to speed up daily tasks and improve your results.
  
• Implementing real-time updates: An automated flow of data gives you a complete overview of your wholesale channel and allows you to make better and quicker business decisions.
  
• Customizing your buying experience: Personalize the buying journey from linesheets to pricing to secure more sales and scale faster.

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How Can Brands Achieve Wholesale Fashion Growth?

1.Streamline Order Management and Sales Processes 

Chasing emails and making phone calls might have been sufficient communication methods for fashion brands of the past, but for those looking to grow today, they’re a recipe for mistakes, backlogs and frustrating manual and operational inefficiencies. Outdated tech can also lead to sales challenges, including delays, errors, and reduced customer satisfaction, which is why scaling is not possible without first embracing digitization. 

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For fashion brands looking to expand, it’s essential to adopt a B2B platform that can digitize how you manage, process and track your wholesale orders. Specialty stores are rapidly gaining market share, and to effectively serve them, brands must have systems in place that can efficiently manage orders from numerous smaller stores. They need an order management software that can streamline this process for them so they can spend their resources on product development and market expansion instead.

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Inefficient sales processes can also result in missed opportunities, lower conversion rates, and poor resource allocation. These struggles are all removed when you work with a B2B marketplace.

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The best wholesale platforms allow you to easily create a beautifully branded online shopping experience for your buyers, so they can place orders 24/7 from the comfort of their desk. Virtual showrooms bring your products to buyers and allow them to easily browse and buy in their own time with just a few clicks.

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Case Study: Belstaff 

By leveraging JOOR's order management features, British fashion brand Belstaff has streamlined its wholesale operations, improved overall efficiency and positioned the business for sustained growth and success.

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"Implementing JOOR has been transformative for Belstaff, leading to an extraordinary 80% reduction in operational costs. This platform has streamlined our processes significantly, allowing us to focus resources more strategically and achieve remarkable efficiencies across our entire organization." — Daria Gulai, Senior Wholesale Assistant Merchandiser at Belstaff

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2.Implement Real-Time Inventory Updates 

Consider the reputational damage when your in-person showroom mistakenly tells a buyer that products are available because they don’t have accurate, up-to-date information. Or count the lost revenue when your leadership team can’t access real-time order information that highlights unexpected spikes in demand. With no visibility to the data, you can’t authorize the extra production increases that can pull in those incremental sales.

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Fashion brands looking to grow in wholesale must adopt the latest technology to automate as many elements of their business as possible, allowing them to see real-time inventory updates and gain an accurate view of their business. By automating the flow of data that runs through your company, you can easily manage and optimize inventory levels, helping to reduce both stockouts and overstocking. 

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Gaining data visibility across your entire business is possible with a B2B platform that integrates with a wide range of systems, such as ERPs, POS platforms, accounting software and PLMs. Integrating JOOR with your ERP, e.g. Netsuite, Shopify, Zedonk, or AIMS360, is the best way to secure real-time updates and a seamless flow of data across your wholesale workflow.

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Automated order tracking and invoicing also allow you to make better business decisions. Fashion brands in the process of scaling must have access to real-time reporting and a complete end-to-end wholesale solution that facilitates everything from order management to collecting payments in order to drive their company forward.

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Case Study: Zulu & Zephyr 

By implementing real-time inventory updates, Australian fashion brand Zulu & Zephyr can make more informed business decisions and react quickly to changing market trends to maximize growth and scale at speed.

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“JOOR’s production reports gave us the speed and insights we needed to spot a surge in dress sales. These data points allowed us to swiftly make the decision to add more dress options for this season, which paid off big time. We saw a 38% increase in SKU depth from the previous year. Dresses are now our best-selling category, making up a whopping 20% of our buys, which is a significant jump considering we're primarily known for swimwear.” - Mel Colman, General Manager at Zulu & Zephyr

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3.Provide Every Retailer With a Personalized Experience

In an oversaturated market where brands are fighting for retailers' attention, it’s increasingly hard for fashion brands to stand out from the crowd, let alone negotiate favorable wholesale terms. The solution? Personalize the buying experience for each of your customers so you not only stand out and satisfy their needs, but also offer something different that makes them feel special.

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If you’re using a B2B platform that offers data insights, you’ll be able to understand how different retailers shop and what they are looking for in a brand. Harness information on past purchases and special requests to help tailor your recommendations for them and increase your chances of sales. Perhaps you’ve discovered that a particular retailer likes to place a small initial order to see if a brand is a good fit for them. In that case, being flexible with your MOQ could be an important catalyst to securing the sale and instantly starting to build a rapport with this new account. 

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Customizable linesheet capabilities are another great way to offer personalized experiences to retailers. Once you know exactly what a retailer is looking for, you can build out a shoppable linesheet created just for them that could include exclusive colorways, custom discounts or special collaboration pieces to attract their business.

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Certain B2B platforms even offer tailored follow-up messages, recommending complementary products for retailers based on their buying history, helping to further strengthen their loyalty to your brand. 

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Case Study: Brodie Cashmere

By personalizing their buyer experience on JOOR, British fashion brand Brodie Cashmere has enhanced their buying process so that it suits their individual retailers' needs and paved the way for their own continued growth and success in the luxury cashmere market.

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“JOOR is the perfect tool for curating shoppable lookbooks. I handpick products that I believe would suit my buyers’ stores, and they can effortlessly browse and shop their favorite styles right within the digital lookbook.” - Emilia Malyon, Wholesale Marketing Manager at Brodie Cashmere

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In Conclusion 

To succeed in fashion wholesale growth, you need to be willing to streamline your processes, access real-time updates and personalize as much of the buying experience as possible.

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Looking for a platform to help with your wholesale brand growth strategies? JOOR’s digital wholesale management software includes virtual showrooms, shoppable linesheets, a wide range of ERP integrations, seamless in-platform payment processing, and JOOR Discover, which has been proven to be 9x more effective in securing new clients than traditional prospecting thanks to its highly personalized approach.

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Try JOOR for yourself today and start scaling at speed. Request a demo.