Systems selection for apparel brands.

Systems do not fix an org chart. A large share of the operational failures we find trace back to a role nobody owns, a handoff nobody wrote down, or a team still sized for the volume you were doing two years ago.

We map who actually does what against what the business needs now, then tell you where to hire, where to restructure, and where training beats headcount. That includes fluency with AI tools — a team that cannot use them will carry cost that competitors have already automated away.

You get: a current-state accountability map, a gap analysis against your target volume, and a hire, train, or restructure recommendation for each gap.

Major retailers require every document to move electronically — purchase orders coming in, invoices and shipping notices going out — through EDI, or Electronic Data Interchange. It is not optional. Being able to trade EDI is a condition of holding the account.

A retailer hands you a routing guide and a go-live date, and the software is never the expensive part. The cost sits in mapping and testing each trading partner, then absorbing every change the retailer makes afterward.

We scope what each partner genuinely requires before you commit to a date, choose a provider against that scope rather than against a price list, and stay through testing so your first live order does not become your first chargeback.

You get: a partner-by-partner requirement map, a scored provider shortlist, and a go-live plan built around the retailer's deadlines.

A 3PL, or third-party logistics provider, is the outside company that stores your inventory and ships your orders. Most apparel brands do not need a new one. They need the warehouse they already have — their own facility or their current 3PL — to work for wholesale. Switching is expensive and disruptive, and it often solves a problem that better process would have fixed for a fraction of the cost.

So we start with what you are running now. Retailer routing, carton labeling, and advance ship notice timing are a different job from direct-to-consumer pick and pack, and that gap is usually where orders go wrong. We find it, fix what can be fixed in place, and say so plainly when the answer is that you are fine.

What questions to ask a fulfillment provider. Which of my retailers do you already ship to, and can I have the account names. What is your typical rate per order and per carton, and what is billed on top. Who absorbs a chargeback caused by your error. What does peak actually look like on your floor. We run that evaluation alongside you rather than handing you a checklist.

Only when the gap is structural rather than procedural do we recommend moving. If it comes to that, we define requirements against the retailers you actually ship to, shortlist providers already serving those accounts, run the site visits with you, and plan a cutover that does not cost you a season of ship windows.

You get: an assessment of your current apparel fulfillment operation, a fix-in-place plan where that is viable, and only if genuinely warranted, a scored 3PL shortlist with rate comparison and a transition plan.

An ERP is the automated operations software that runs orders, inventory, production, and invoicing from one place. Most ERP selections go wrong before the first demo is booked, because the requirements describe the system you already have rather than the business you are building toward. Every vendor can meet that spec, so none of them solve the real problem.

We write requirements from your actual order patterns — split shipments, size runs, retailer-specific rules, returns — then run the RFP and score responses against your data rather than the vendor's demo set. We stay through implementation holding them to what they sold.

You get: a requirements specification, a managed RFP, a scored comparison, and oversight through go-live.

Every vendor now claims AI. Most of it is a feature list rather than a change in how the work actually gets done, and the only question worth asking is which manual steps disappear.

We find where your team is doing work a machine should be doing — order entry, exception triage, deduction coding, demand signals — then check what your current systems can already automate before you buy anything new. Where new tooling is genuinely warranted, we scope it on hours removed, not features gained. Good automation takes steps out of the process; it does not add checkpoints that slow people down.

You get: an automation opportunity map ranked by hours recovered, an honest assessment of what your existing stack already does, and a build-or-buy recommendation.

Growth exposes the seams. Processes that worked at ten accounts break at fifty, and the failure shows up as deductions and overtime long before it shows up on the P&L.

We map order-to-cash as it genuinely runs, find where the same number is keyed twice and where exceptions are solved by heroics, then redesign so automation removes steps rather than adding checkpoints that slow your team down.

You get: a current-state process map, failure points ranked by cost, and a redesign your team can actually run.

Most brands do not have an inventory problem so much as a visibility problem. Wholesale, direct-to-consumer, and retail each hold their own version of the truth, and nobody sees the position as a whole.

We build buy planning and allocation logic that treats inventory as one position across channels, with reporting the whole business agrees on. Fewer markdowns from the wrong buy, fewer missed orders from stock sitting in the wrong place.

You get: an allocation framework, a buy planning process, and reporting that reconciles across channels.

Most brands can tell you gross margin at company level and very little below it. Which styles actually earn, which channels quietly lose money after discounts and deductions, what a garment truly costs by the time duty and freight are in — those answers are usually missing.

We build the costing so profitability is visible by style and by channel, not just in aggregate, and model landed cost including freight and duty. With tariff exposure moving as fast as it has been, landed cost modeling has gone from useful to necessary.

You get: a style and channel profitability model, a landed cost framework, and a duty exposure analysis.

Deductions arrive coded, unexplained, and months after the shipment. Until each one is mapped back to a cause you can neither dispute them nor stop them recurring, so most brands quietly absorb the same handful of failures season after season.

We code every deduction to root cause, usually ASN timing, carton labeling, or routing compliance, then build a dispute process your team can run inside the retailer's window and a prevention plan aimed at whichever failure is costing the most.

You get: a coded deduction analysis, a dispute workflow with owners and deadlines, and a ranked prevention plan.

Growth consumes cash before it produces it. Wholesale terms mean you fund production now and get paid sixty days or more after delivery, so the season that breaks a brand is very often the one that sold well.

We look at how your cash cycle actually behaves across a season, then at the options around it: factoring and purchase order financing structured to your buying calendar, letters of credit, collections discipline, and deduction recovery — money you have already earned that is sitting uncollected. We are not a lender or a broker and we take no commission from either. We help you understand the options and negotiate them.

You get: a season cash cycle analysis, a comparison of financing options against your calendar, and a deduction recovery plan.