Textile & Apparel Traders Exchange

How is selling Fashion like selling Seafood?

Your inventory does NOT improve with age!

Scenario 1:

Ok, you've had a decent season. The new line is coming together pretty well. The last thing you want to think about is the past season's leftovers. But there they are: the 1200 piece cancellation from Ultra Mega Mart just because you were 3 days late, the 650 yards of blue twill (green turned out to be the hot color) and the other odds and ends. You see them every time you walk through the back, on the racks, under the cutting tables. And to make matters worse, your CPA says you have to figure your inventory at cost (not what the jobbers may pay you) just so you can have the privelige of paying taxes on the (dead) inventory. The good news is that if you sell the stuff to the jobbers at 10 to 30 cents on the dollar your tax exposure will be lower. aarrrg!

"Turn beats gross margin any day."

Scenario 2:

Reorder, Great! I just need 650 yards of blue twill to balance the lot. The mill says "3-4 weeks before the next lot of blue comes through the dye schedule and, by the way, we need one thousand yards to put it into work". The customer will give me 3 weeks to ship or cancel. aarrrg!

"One man's junk is another man's treasure."

You get the idea. There are dozens of other Scenarios that we can think of. We've been through most of them ourselves. That's the point of this site. The solution to many of our inventory problems (overages or lack of) is information. If we can make our overages available to the rest of the industry in an anonymous and secure setting or if we can fill our need for product from existing inventories we will potentially save many thousands of dollars and immeasurable amounts of aggravation.