Modern Fashion Supply Chain Pt.3
Here comes another chapter on Modern Fashion Supply Chain. This also doesn’t just stop here, there are still 2 more chapters to discuss further, to find out more, you can read this article! Or you can read the chapter 1 and 2 here!
CHAPTER 3: Understanding Modern Fashion Supply Chain Logistics
In simple terms, figuring out the logistics of your fashion supply chain is just deciding how your product will get from point A to point B. This involves shipping, customs, packaging, warehousing, and more, but at its core, logistics denotes the transportation of goods or information and how it happened.
Logistical planning has been around for thousands of years, but we are far from when the Han Dynasty charted the Silk Road. While logistics planning may have required less monitoring and optimization in past years, the rapidly changing retail landscape, trade structures, costs and labor practices impacting sourcing globally have evolved logistics planning into an area of continuous monitoring, growth and improvement for the fashion business.
Planning a modern fashion supply chain logistics network primarily requires fashion labels to weigh two things against each other such as customer service and business costs.
Let our advanced worries become advanced thoughts and plans.
Again, small, medium and large fashion brands will benefit from creating a logistics network that is digital, diverse, transparent, predictive and partnered as much as possible to balance risks, ensure accountability and protect their investments.
How Does Fashion Supply Chain Logistics Affect Customer Experience?
The best and most modern fashion supply chain logistics network prioritizes customers. They do this by charting the most efficient and profitable paths between apparel origins and their customers. Starting from point A and point B, they’ll work from the big picture to the details, populating the route with transportation and warehouse, dropshipper, or retail locations.
Let’s examine those details starting by looking at warehousing strategy. Whether your fashion brand has decided to invest in building your own warehouse or prefer to use a dropshipper or ship directly to retailers, you need to make sure that the location where your products are stored is convenient for your customers. Over the last two decades, Amazon has put its tremendous resources into executing this beautifully, growing from two fulfillment centers in Delaware and Seattle to 175 of them located at various points across Europe and the US.
The other side of the logistics equation is transportation. How fashion businesses organize their warehousing strategy has a major impact on how they need to plan their transportation strategy. That’s because these two elements balance and feed each other. If one is weak, the other must overcompensate to fill the void and still provide the best possible customer experience.
That is the beauty of a well-planned and well-maintained logistics network that can function not only as a means to an end, but also to the benefit of the customers themselves.
What is the cost and benefit of quality mode logistics?
It is clear that Amazon is an extraordinary example with more financial resources, warehousing, and transportation than almost all other companies, let alone the brand of fashion given. Thus, matching the Amazon scale will not be possible, but what can and must be done by the clothing business owner is to plan their logistics networks very strategically, weighing the cost of customer service on each way.
Careful logistics planning of warehousing and transportation can provide business advantages and marketing fashion brands, including but not limited to:
- More reliable delivery
- Faster product delivery
- Fewer quality product quality problems
The cheapest logistics network looks different from the most expensive in terms of not only costs, but also services. You can have great customer service with only one warehouse supported by transportation overnight, but the cost will be more than what can be taken by most young fashion brands. Clothing designers must remember that better services for customers are almost always the same as higher investment costs for business. Some of the questions that you should ask yourself when planning your logistics network include:
- How many warehouses or dropshippers do I send to the largest number of my customers?
- How do I keep my mile per ship (MPd) as low as possible?
- How will I balance where I spend all my fashion logistics networks?
Answering these questions will take time and homework, but in the end it is feasible. Building a solid warehousing or dropshipping network from the start will allow you to maintain your transportation costs efficient and cost effectively. If you are not or your needs change significantly from time to time, transportation needs to be redeemed several month shifts or years later.
How will you evaluate the costs and benefits of quality logistics networks?
When you examine your logistics network settings, be aware of comfortable logistics groups. This is almost everywhere, and can help you create some strong foundations for your logistics strategy. Take for example, Reno, Nevada on the West Coast. Reno is a popular logistics center for many brands of consumer goods because of its proximity to California and lack of inventory tax. Examples of the East Coast are Valley Lehigh in Pennsylvania. Close to New York City, but is a cheaper location for running and building warehouses while still giving easy access to customers above and under the beach of New England.
After you know the best logistics mixture for your fashion label, you can jump to detail forecasting fashion requests and inventory planning. This sustainable exercise is very important to help your brand excite customers and benefit in any season.