Growth

Adapting Strategies for Dynamic Markets: Fashion And Clothing Operating Models

By Ashutosh Kumar

Want to keep up with the dynamic fashion industry? Explore strategies that enable brands to improve operational, supply chain, and design processes.

India is one of the biggest producers of textiles in the world. The country’s fashion and apparel industry is massive and diverse. As of 2023, the Indian apparel market is worth a staggering USD 96.47 billion!

Despite the economic challenges, fashion industry in India is growing with technological advancements. Virtual fitting rooms, digital supply chain management, and generative AI are a few innovations empowering fashion brands.

Adapting to these innovations and trends is vital for fashion brands to stay relevant and meet consumer demands. Those who adapt most effectively to the ever-evolving environment are best positioned to succeed.

Dive in to uncover some effective strategies that will help fashion brands to thrive in the dynamic fashion industry. From types of business operating models to optimised supply chains, this article covers everything you need to know.

Creating Agile Supply Chains

Balancing supply and demand in the fashion industry is essential. It can directly impact inventory turnover on profitability.

A higher turnover means that the brand efficiently:

manages its inventory
sells products quickly
restocks as required
ultimately earning greater revenue

This is not an easy task, though. Product complexity, extended supply chains, and evolving customer needs can make it challenging. These major factors make balancing supply and demand difficult for many.

Design-to-store lead time often takes 6 months when consumers' preferences have already changed. High inventory levels cause losses as brands have to sell at discounts. Building an agile supply chain model is necessary to overcome these challenges and meet market demands better.

Supply chain agility is a consumer-oriented, end-to-end process to respond better to changing demand. It focuses on lean procurement practices and iterative development cycles to build a flexible supply chain. With this, fashion companies can effectively balance supply and demand. It helps reduce inventory costs and enhances capital efficiencies.

The Four Key Components of An Agile Supply Chain in the Fashion Industry

1. Merchandising Agility

For this, brands must follow a personalised and interactive approach. This can help them to showcase their collection to consumers and encourage sales. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) can curate unique experiences and adjust to new shopping habits. The rise of shopping online, researching products, and focusing on quality and sustainability, to name a few.

By leveraging AR and VR, brands can create virtual stores that enable consumers to browse and interact with products. They will feel like they are physically touching the clothing items. They can even virtually try on clothes, see how it looks, and make a choice.

Manish Malhotra, a well-known fashion designer, was the first to open India's virtual designer store in 2021. He offers customers the exclusive chance to take an immersive virtual walkthrough of its Delhi flagship store.

Designed with custom configurations and navigation systems,

you walk through the isles
zoom in on clothes
get the details of items

And all of this from the comfort of your space.

2. Design Agility

When it comes to product design, brands need to develop clothes better tailored to consumer needs and fashion trends. This requires a greater understanding of consumer preferences. By leveraging social listening tools, you can analyse conversations and trends in your industry.

Moreover, by utilising predictive analysis for trend forecasting, you can test extensive data sets. This includes online searches, consumer behaviour, social media, and past trends. Identify patterns and upcoming trends to create designs and styles consumers will love.

3. Production Agility

When it comes to production, brands must adopt a small-batch and responsive production model. This involves placing a small order three to four months before the season based on trend forecasting. Then, you can make frequent in-season inventory replenishments based on your exact sales.

Sales managers collect and transfer sales data in real time. This allows marketers to analyse the performance of a given item and adjust quantities accordingly.

Fashion brands can rely on effective inventory management software for agile manufacturing. This kind of solution processes past sales data and predicts future demand for your inventory. As a result, you will have key inputs to ensure accurate order planning, minimise wastage, and prevent stockouts.

Also, radio-frequency identification tags on each garment, makes it easier for companies to track. With the data, you can improve the production process and identify potential bottlenecks.

4. Organisational Agility

To respond to ever-evolving fashion trends, brands can enhance operational models' responsiveness. And, encouraging cross-functional collaboration can be beneficial. They can achieve this by adopting a flat structure focusing on fewer management layers.

More specifically, fashion brands can empower their employees with cross-functional collaboration tools. Generative AI will further speed up the process by developing new ideas or helping refine and optimise existing designs. Creativity might have no limits and staying updated according to the latest trends will be easier.

Embracing Sustainable and Ethical Practices

Sustainability is a major trend in the fashion industry that will become a norm in the coming years because of climate change. Consumers today have become more conscious of the impact their purchases have on the environment.

Worldwide, 65% of buyers in the fashion industry care about the environment. It has become a key factor in consumers' purchase decisions. This shift in consumer buying behaviour means brands need to start paying more attention to production processes and materials.

Some sustainable practices brands can implement include:

Eco-friendly fabrics and materials: Brands can use green materials like linen and hemp to bring their designs to consumers. These materials minimise waste and pollution and provide a more sustainable and ethical way to produce fashion items. It even creates a more positive brand image.
Focus on circular fashion solutions: To achieve sustainability, circular fashion solutions are great. Such solutions come from recycled materials, offering consumers an alternative to fast-fashion-produced products. They are stylish and designed to last, using durable recycled or repurposed materials.

Reach out & Collaborate With Influencers

Staying updated with the latest consumer trends is not enough; you must adapt your marketing approach to ongoing trends. Consumer behaviour is constantly evolving, influenced by social changes and technological advancements.

In the contemporary digital age, industry leaders know influencers lead social media in fashion. Through consistent reviews, stories, videos, and posts, influencers can capture the attention. This can help fashion brands to enhance sales.

Consumers and influencers both share a parasocial relationship. It's like a one-sided relationship where consumers watch influencers' content, relate to them, and feel like they know them. This further fosters a strong bond between both and leads to trust.

Fashion brands can leverage this trust to reach their ideal audience and increase their brand exposure. Collaborate with influencers in your industry who share your style and produce quality content. Check out micro-influencers who may have small but targeted followings. With influencer marketing, you can add a human touch to your endorsements, making them more authentic and credible.

AND India, a famous fashion brand, collaborated with Kritika Khurana, well-known as @thatbohogirl on Instagram, with a following of 1.8 million. She created diverse content showcasing AND's clothing range, including outfit pairings, try-on hauls, and styling tips. This partnership helped the brand reach a wider audience, increase awareness, and drive traffic to their stores.

The Bottom Line

It's time for fashion brands to innovate and think beyond traditional operational models.

The fashion industry is spinning with new trends and demands. To stay ahead of the competition, brands need to adapt their business model to keep up with market trends and consumer preferences. It's important that moving forward, they prioritise digitalisation, personalisation, and sustainability.

While some of these strategies may seem costly, they come with long-term benefits that cannot be ignored. All these listed strategies will help you respond better to consumers and market demands to come out on top.

If you're a fashion brand looking to create a more efficient and sustainable business model, contact Growth Jockey. With years of experience and expertise with smart technology–driven solutions, Growth Jockey can help your fashion business mitigate these challenges and grow.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can AI change traditional fashion design methods?

With generative AI, fashion houses can speed up the design process. It helps to create new designs based on certain parameters, such as the target market, desired aesthetics, and style trends.

2. What is the use of digital twins technology in the fashion industry?

In the fashion industry, digital twins refer to virtual replicas of physical fashion garments. They help to imitate, test, and optimise various aspects of the fashion product development process. It even helps to reduce the need for physical prototypes. They even make the testing process faster and more accurate.